408 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



often suffered and overcame, in spite of the proverbial disillu- 

 sionment of the valet he grew by nearness to be more the 

 hero, rather than less. 



If there was any perceptible physical change during these 

 later years, it was perhaps an increased tendency to vertigo, the 

 old enemy with which he had struggled for a large part of his 

 life. Even while lecturing it would sometimes assail him like a 

 flash of lightning, and but for his habit of holding himself well 

 in hand during any physical stress he might easily have suc- 

 cumbed. The only outward sign he gave of the disturbance was 

 a blanching of the face and a momentary interruption of the 

 flow of speech. He was accustomed to pull himself together so 

 quickly that few noticed the break. The attack, short as it 

 might be, nevertheless produced very painful sensations, and 

 he often spoke of it as "a living death." Sick headaches 

 which had tortured him from his youth were now less frequent, 

 though sometimes he labored through a day of hard work, even 

 a lecture, while borne down by them. The stress they had laid 

 upon his body and spirit all during his earlier manhood could not 

 be estimated, nor the firmness of will that led him to reject the 

 valetudinarian habit of life. He had sufficient cause to have 

 lapsed into self-indulgence and indolence had he allowed him- 

 self, but he set his face against these qualities, and at whatever 

 cost of will-power and suffering he lived a manly and self- 

 exacting life. To feel disinclined to do a thing was with him good 

 reason for doing it. He often said that his physical ailments had 

 strengthened his will and done more than anything else to make 

 a man of him, and for this reason he gave to pain a high place in 

 the work of spiritual education. Indeed, he was of the nature to 

 give the rack or thumb-screw a word of praise. 



The summer of 1904 he spent much as usual, the Summer 

 School claiming in the early part its usual allotment of time and 

 care; and later he went to Montana to look after the Conroy 

 Mine, of which he was the president. On the way to Montana 

 he writes: 



