THE SUBJECT OF ANECDOTE 



128 



Nothing but the unfailing regularity of his days enabled him 

 to accomplish what he did. It was not, however, an inhuman 

 regularity that excluded the play of life ; he found time for this, 

 too. Owing to the habit he acquired of intense concentration, he 

 was able to make use of spare moments for reading or writing 

 when other men would have thought of nothing save their cares 

 and fatigue. In these fragments of time he would peg away at 

 his regular work or almost instantaneously lose himself in his 

 own world of entertainment. He was glad to have those near 

 him enter this world if they would, but he never thrust his com- 

 positions upon them, and while engaged in writing anything of 

 a serious nature he was averse to talking about it. On the whole, 

 he was singularly independent of criticism ; he wrote because he 

 had something definite to say and was content to say it once for 

 all and forget it. With his poetry it was different ; he was less 

 confident and asked advice of some of his colleagues of reputed 

 literary judgment. 



Mr. Shaler's personality was such that he became the subject 

 of a whole world of anecdote and reminiscence in the College 

 circle. These were communicated by word of mouth, or under- 

 stood by nod and gesture by the initiated ; as, for instance, when 

 students called him "Uncle Nat," the sobriquet suggested how 

 often they were saved by timely application to him from a visit 

 to the "Uncle" with the three balls for sign of willingness to 

 accommodate. But these current sayings and the performances 

 that gave rise to them, like all unrecorded things, even though 

 there were a cloud of witnesses, have gone or are going the 

 way of oblivion. The other side of his character happily lives 

 on in his books. 



