VI.] Chauncey Wright, 105 



sympathy with the general doctrine of evolution, — an 

 interesting and instructive spectacle. But I doubt 

 if Mr. Wright would ever have undertaken an ex- 

 tensive work. To sit down and map out a subject 

 for systematic exploration would have been a pro- 

 ceeding wholly foreign to his habits. His thinking 

 had that defect which we find in Schubert's music, — 

 lack of artistic form, inability to bring up concisely 

 when once set going. Once launched out on a shore- 

 less sea of speculation, he would brood and ponder 

 for weeks, while bright determining thoughts would 

 occur to him at seeming haphazard, Hke the rational 

 combinations of phenomena in his theory of " cosmic 

 weather." To his suggestive and stimulating con- 

 versation this unsystematic habit gave additional 

 charm. An evening's talk with Mr. Wright always 

 seemed to me one of the richest of intellectual enter- 

 tainments, but there was no telling how or where it 

 would end. At two o'clock in the morning he would 

 perhaps take his hat and saunter homeward with me 

 by way of finishing the subject ; but on reaching my 

 gate a new suggestion would turn us back, — and so 

 we would alternately escort each other home perhaps 

 a dozen times, until tired Nature asserted her rights 

 and the newly opening vistas of discussion were 

 regretfully left unexplored. 



