INTRODUCTION
and regaled her and the Aikens with the poems of Wordsworth—which they did not invariably appreciate—or of Southey, or even of the free-thinking, wicked Lord Byron. He was equally at home in Unitarian and Dissenting circles, in the Anglican atmosphere of Rydal Mount or Fox How, or with Roman Catholic O'Connell or Quillinan. He was profoundly interested in religious speculation, but the essentials of his own creed, as expounded in more than one place in his Diary and letters, he worked out for himself. It was, above all, a tolerant creed, as might be expected from so tolerant a man. Nothing, for instance, more repelled him than the conception of eternal damnation for unbelievers, and there is a long letter on this subject to his friend Richmond, then on the point of being ordained minister in the Episcopalian Church of America.
Crabb Robinson's acquaintances were of every social class and of very various capacity. Though he dearly loved a "lion," there was nothing of the intellectual snob about him, and he mixed freely with all kinds of people. As a young man he loved dancing—though he did not approve of waltzing[1] when he first came across it at Frankfort in 1800. When he was old he often paid anonymously the cost of an end-of-term dance for the men of University Hall. He was a great walker, who seems to have thought nothing of a thirty-five mile expedition, and in late middle life he could still tire out youngsters of half his age. No doubt connected with this physical energy were the high spirits which distinguished him. All his friends comment upon his
- ↑ He describes it in a letter to his brother as "rolling or turning, though the rolling is not horizontal, but perpendicular. Yet Werter, after describing his first waltz with Charlotte, says—and I say so too—'I felt that were I married, my wife should waltz (or roll) with no one but myself.' Judge: The man places the palms of his hands gently against the sides of his partner, not far from the arm-pits. His partner does the same, and instantly with as much velocity as possible they turn round and at the same time gradually glide round the room."
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