A WASTED LIFE 11 



as he would in his confidences wail to me of this curse of bash- 

 fulness, with the tears streaming down his face of old bronze. 

 He was fit but for one business, that of the hunter and fisher- 

 man, and he found in middle life a suitable place as game com- 

 missioner in the state of Maine. In his declining years, I often 

 visited him there, and had my pay in his comments on men and 

 things as good in their way as Thomas Carlyle's. I have seen 

 many wasted lives, but none where as much natural capacity 

 as his was fruitless. As with many other self-indulgent men, 

 his interests became in the end limited to the sports of hunting 

 and fishing activities which call on the primitive motives of 

 men, and in a mature person indicate a degradation of the 

 civilizing motives. So passionately was he devoted to such 

 business, that he warned me that he would not make me heir 

 to his property unless I would go with him for a month in search 

 of salmon. I felt that the price of my refusal was not overmuch 

 to pay. 



My father had two brothers and a sister. The eldest brother, 

 William, I never saw : he was a well-educated man, having been 

 trained at the University of Upsala in Sweden, and in other 

 European schools, at the cost of his uncle the consul. There 

 was evidently a tincture of worthlessness in him, for with ability, 

 a fine presence, and perfect health he died without leaving any 

 sign of quality. The other brother showed a like inability to 

 face the world. I knew him about my father's house when I was 

 a lad, and found him a penetrating intelligence, a mind of a 

 distinctly philosophic power, but hampered by indolence and 

 self-indulgence. The sister, my aunt, though inheriting much 

 of the presence of her aunt Abigail, had not her commanding 

 character. She was married to a dominating brute who crushed 

 out the considerable talent which was in her. 



I have now to describe my father, who was a very singular 

 man. I foresee that I shall not be able to set him forth in his 

 true quality. Born in 1803, he was but a lad when his mother 

 died of grief for her vanished husband. There was money enough 



