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per month; or thirty-six thousand nine hundred and eighty-six per day;
or one thousand five hundred and forty-one per hour; or six and twenty
dollars for every minute that flew. Thus the usual track of supposition
was thoroughly broken up. Men knew not what to imagine. There were some
who even conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest himself of at least
one-half of his fortune, as of utterly superfluous opulence--enriching
whole troops of his relatives by division of his superabundance. To the
nearest of these he did, in fact, abandon the very unusual wealth which
was his own before the inheritance.
I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made up his
mind on a point which had occasioned so much discussion to his friends.
Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his decision. In regard to
individual charities he had satisfied his conscience. In the possibility
of any improvement, properly so called, being effected by man himself in
the general condition of man, he had (I am sorry to confess it) little
faith. Upon the whole, whether happily or unhappily, he was thrown back,
in very great measure, upon self.
In the widest and noblest sense he was a poet. He comprehended,
moreover, the true character, the august aims, the supreme majesty and
dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest, if not the sole proper
satisfaction of this sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in the
creation of novel forms of beauty. Some peculiarities, either in his
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