I had known Bragdon as a successful commission merchant for some ten or
fifteen years, during which period of time we had been more or less
intimate, particularly so in the last five years of his life, when we were
drawn more closely together; I, attracted by the absolute genuineness of
his character, his delightful fancy, and to my mind wonderful originality,
for I never knew another like him; he, possibly by the fact that I was one
of the very few who could entirely understand him, could sympathize with
his peculiarities, which were many, and was always ready to enter into any
one of his odd moods, and with quite as much spirit as he himself should
display. It was an ideal friendship.
[Illustration]
It had been our custom every summer to take what Bragdon called spirit
trips together--that is to say, generally in the early spring, Bragdon and
I would choose some out-of-the-way corner of the world for exploration; we
would each read all the literature that we could find concerning the
chosen locality, saturate our minds with the spirit, atmosphere, and
history of the place, and then in August, boarding a small schooner-rigged
boat belonging to Bragdon, we would cruise about the Long Island Sound or
sail up and down the Hudson River for a week, where, tabooing all other
subjects, we would tell each other all that we had been able to discover
concerning the place we had decided upon for our imaginary visit.
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