360 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



like the view from his study window, the bare hills standing 

 aloof from the green fields. The act of writing was in itself 

 a soothing occupation, and it is for this reason doubtless that 

 one finds in his books a large and stately way of putting things 

 rather than the dash and verve one remembers in his talk and 

 actions. 



No doubt his sojourns in the country were a solace and a 

 moral profit. The impulse which nature gave him towards the 

 large and noble aspect of creation was strengthened by the op- 

 portunity for peaceful contemplation. The serener air restored 

 the equilibrium of character that was sometimes perturbed in 

 the ardent pursuit of the projects he had most at heart. Re- 

 moved from the intenser struggle, he was able to sever the es- 

 sential and permanent from what was accidental and transient; 

 his state of mind thus became calmer, and his generosity of 

 thought and deed, his largeness of heart and tenderness, in a 

 more pronounced way came to the surface. Always sensitive 

 to the genial and gracious side of social intercourse, he sought 

 occasions for the practice of a still finer courtesy in the minor 

 as well as the more important acts of life. He could not pass 

 through a field without gathering a bunch of wild roses for those 

 at home, and every morning at each breakfast plate he would 

 place the flower of the season which he plucked with the dew 

 upon it. Often in his walks he would go out of his way to shake 

 hands with a lonely old man whose wandering days were over. 

 It may be that it was amid the reposeful scenes by which he was 

 surrounded, and in the silent places he sought, that he made his 

 conquests in the ample spaces of his soul, and fitted himself 

 more completely to become the free champion of all that was 

 noble. 



