420 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



into something fine and precious. Even the food at his table 

 had a better flavor than any other. 



It may be said in this connection that his attitude toward 

 women was exceedingly chivalrous, and for the elderly of fine 

 character he had profound reverence. And yet, as a rule, his 

 affections having become early centred, so far as he was con- 

 cerned, women only existed in a generalized way and not as 

 objects of definite personal interest. There was a time in his 

 life when he was apt to take the absence of beauty in a wo- 

 man as a personal affront, and if one of his " boys " married 

 a plain girl he was indignant. Farther along, however, this, 

 in a measure, ceased to be the case, he was content to find 

 in their faces a good, motherly, feminine expression. 



Mr. Shaler's well-recognized irascibility was partly owing to 

 physical causes and partly to an exceedingly sensitive nature. 

 His emotions, both pleasurable and painful, were singularly 

 acute, and when thoroughly aroused his tongue was sharp and 

 trenchant. But at foundation he was so noble and large-hearted, 

 so willing to pardon and forgive the offence which had aroused 

 his ire, that the sting, received and given, was soon over. Only 

 meanness and indirection he neither would nor could forgive. 

 He strove very hard to overcome his excitability. Yet, working 

 as he did to the full stretch of his capacity and a little beyond 

 (doing many things easily, he had little present feeling of the 

 amount of work he accomplished), the pressure under which he 

 lived was too great for one of his nervous temperament. No- 

 thing less than superhuman powers could have coped with the 

 physical and mental stress that his varied activities imposed, 

 or have allayed the nervousness for which they were indirectly 

 responsible. There were periods when his doing-power was ex- 

 traordinary. In contrast to it, do what they would, those about 

 him seemed to be mere cumberers of the soil. The last years of 

 his life, however, in this respect were somewhat calmer. The 

 unanswerable quests of the soul, the permanence of matter, and 

 the persistence of force, in other words, the profundities of the 



