All his talk turned upon religion, and he
would ever and anon burst out in some strain of scriptural-styled
eloquence, chanted through his nose, like an exhortation at a
camp-meeting. A group of Universalists and no-religionists sat around
him, making him their butt, and holding wild argument with him; and he
strangely mingled humor with his enthusiasm, and enthusiasm with his
humor, so that it was almost impossible to tell whether he were in jest
or earnest. Probably it was neither, but an eccentricity, an almost
monomania, that has grown upon him,--perhaps the result of strong
religious excitement. And, having been a backslider, he is cursed with a
half-frenzied humor. In the morning he talked in the same strain at
breakfast, while quaffing fourteen cups of tea,--Eliza, all the while, as
she supplied him, entreating him not to drink any more. After breakfast
(it being the Sabbath) he drove his two cows and bull past the stoop,
raising his stair, and running after them with strange, uncouth gestures;
and the last word I heard from him was an exhortation: "Gentlemen, now
all of you take your Bibles, and meditate on divine things,"--this being
uttered with raised hands, and a Methodistical tone, intermingled, as was
his expression, with something humorous; so that, to the last, the puzzle
was still kept up, whether he was an enthusiast or a jester.
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