The Doctor was a philosopher, a metaphysician, a philanthropist, and in
the highest and most earnest sense a minister of good on earth. The
New England clergy had no sentimental affectation of sanctity that
segregated them from wholesome human relations; and consequently our
good Doctor had always resolved, in a grave and thoughtful spirit, at a
suitable time in his worldly affairs, to choose unto himself a helpmeet.
Love, as treated of in romances, he held to be a foolish and profane
matter, unworthy the attention of a serious and reasonable creature. All
the language of poetry on this subject was to him an unknown tongue. He
contemplated the entrance on married life somewhat in this wise:--That
at a time and place suiting, he should look out unto himself a woman of
a pleasant countenance and of good repute, a zealous, earnest Christian,
and well skilled in the items of household management, whom accosting as
a stranger and pilgrim to a better life, he should loyally and lovingly
entreat, as Isaac did Rebekah, to come under the shadow of his tent and
be a helpmeet unto him in what yet remained of this mortal journey. But
straitened circumstances, and the unsettled times of the Revolution, in
which he had taken an earnest and zealous part, had delayed to a late
bachelorhood the fulfilment of this resolution.
When once received under the shadow of Mrs. Scudder's roof, and within
the provident sphere of her unfailing housekeeping, all material
necessity for an immediate choice was taken away; for he was exactly in
that situation dearest to every scholarly and thoughtful man, in which
all that pertained to the outward life appeared to rise under his hand
at the moment he wished for it without his knowing how or why.
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