10 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



ing was a rather massive brick structure, in large grounds 

 sloping to the Nashua River. I recall that the doors were of 

 mahogany and the hinges plated with silver. Since then the 

 dwelling has been burned, and the grounds sold to the state 

 for the use of a school. The considerable library of William 

 Shaler, which seemed to my eyes very fine, in fact, as I 

 know from competent persons, was rich in the old standard 

 editions of the classics, went to the Boston Public Library. 



My great-aunt had four children : a daughter Elizabeth, then 

 recently dead, had been married to an interesting fellow who 

 bore the name of David Stuart, a very attractive Scot who 

 claimed to be of kingly blood and looked it thoroughly, but was 

 otherwise rather worthless ; there had been three sons, but one 

 was killed in the Texan battle of San Jacinto. Another was a 

 physician in Sag Harbor, New York; and the third, Elias 

 Millard Stilwell, was yet with his mother, at the end of varie- 

 gated experiments in the art of existing beautifully. Since my 

 father and Elias Stilwell were double cousins, they were nearer 

 akin than ordinary cousins german, and singularly alike in 

 appearance. This likeness is indeed curiously common in those 

 of my name stock, even when the common ancestor is four 

 or five generations back. Partly for this reason, we soon came 

 near to one another in spirit ; furthermore he had an eminent 

 capacity for saying things aptly. In fact, he had the greatest 

 capacity for phrasing I have ever known in a man who was too 

 lazy and contentious to acquire any fair semblance of an edu- 

 cation. As a young man, he had been sent to West Point, but 

 found a speedy exit because he thrashed one of his instructors. 

 From France, where he went as clerk, he fought his way home 

 again. Put to like work in this country, he had ended a brief 

 career on a newspaper beating the life out of a man who had 

 assailed him for some well-merited criticism. A curious thing 

 about his troubles was that he attributed them all to his shy- 

 ness, his inability to come into normal contact with men, which 

 led him when in any way assailed to turn demon. I see him now 



