CONVERSATION AT SEVEN GATES 359 



thickets, and woods, he would soon be out of sight and hearing. 

 The fact was, he wished to be alone and to follow his own train 

 of thought uninterrupted by what he called chatter in contra- 

 distinction to good talk. Indeed what was said of another might 

 be said of him : his library was in the house, but his study was out 

 of doors. He preferred a companion who had nothing to say, 

 or, if he had, would keep from saying it. He liked the one who 

 was oftenest with him to remain within sight and speaking dis- 

 tance, but to guard the peace until on the way home. The time 

 for talking was at table, or in the evening just after supper while 

 he was smoking his long-stemmed pipe, which he filled and 

 lighted often as a sort of punctuation to the flow of speech ; at 

 these times he delighted to expend himself in conversation. 

 Not infrequently there were regular conversational orgies, when 

 for instance Professor Royce, Dr. James, or other congenial men 

 would come to visit him ; then these inspiring and indefatigable 

 talkers would only cease with physical exhaustion, for original 

 ideas in that circle never were lacking. These occasions could 

 not be said to be brilliant tournaments where men disported 

 themselves for display, but each spoke from the abundance of 

 his fertile mind to convince, to learn, or bring to light the 

 elusive fact. It was a dead heat with frequent returns to the 

 unsolved problem. Talks like these, and others in the library at 

 Cambridge, with many men of many minds for interlocutors, 

 would have made the services of a shorthand writer a desirable 

 thing. 



Some of Mr. Shaler's best thinking was done on his place at 

 the Vineyard. Here, free from the endless interruptions of his 

 official life, he could carry on a connected train of thought with- 

 out the waste of energy that rallying the mind for fresh assault 

 brings. When he wanted a change he would turn from prose to 

 poetry, in this way practising a sort of mental rotation of crops. 

 To shed the practical work at Cambridge and enter the field of 

 speculative thought, or the stirring world of Elizabeth's time, 

 was leaving drudgery and soaring into the upper spaces. It was 



