HIS FATHER 15 



well as in money : this at the outset, but with the advance of the 

 war his interest in it as in all else gradually flagged nothing 

 held him permanently. 



As I look back on him, I discern ever more clearly what I saw 

 in a measure in his lifetime, a mark of the commonplace pre- 

 sented to the world, behind which the large-natured, able per- 

 sonality was well hidden even from himself. It was an instance 

 of what I have found in many, found even in myself when the 

 consciousness seems to be abnormally limited, when only a 

 small and the lesser part of the intelligence comes into its illu- 

 mination, the greater part remaining in the dark. It was my 

 father's ideal to be a stoic, to put aside all things spiritual, to 

 regard emotions and the speculations to which they lead as 

 signs of weakness. His good measure of will power united with 

 his lethargic humor enabled him to thrust back all the offerings 

 of his spirit and to keep himself in the ordinary matters of 

 every-day life. 



After he was sixty years old my father gave up reading, and 

 in a great measure withdrew from the small world of his activi- 

 ties. It was his wont to sit for hours looking out of the window, 

 but evidently withdrawn from what passed before his sight. If 

 brought back by a sudden question, he would sometimes reveal 

 by a word or two that he had been far away on some specula- 

 tion, but he would at once hide the trail of it with some com- 

 monplace remark. So far as I can remember, but once or 

 twice in my contacts with him the deeps broke through the 

 well-constructed barrier and revealed a part of what was 

 habitually hidden. After those chance revelations he became 

 at once more obstinately trivial than before, as if to protest 

 against the momentary enlargement of his better but most 

 artfully concealed self. Since I was often near him until he 

 died in 1882, I had a chance to see the strange workings of 

 his complex personality, and to form the opinion that the basis 

 of the suppression of his better part was an intense shyness, 

 amounting to an incapacity to reveal himself, with the result 



