372 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



require constant watchfulness and discipline to prevent 

 most persons from sometimes failing in what is graceful and 

 noble, with him these actions were involuntary and spon 

 taneous. His goodness was so untinctured by calculation, 

 so all-embracing, so gentle ! He deeply struck all who 

 came in contact with him, the high and low, the unlearned 

 and the educated. These were the first words of Humboldt 

 to me on handing him the card of my instructor : " Pro 

 fessor Silliman is an excellent character." He felt a sincere 

 interest in the welfare of every one with whom he came in 

 contact, and fully showed it by appropriate speech and 

 action. His manners were marked by the most natural 

 dignity and nobleness. For easy, sprightly, instructive con 

 versation, he surpassed any man I have known. He was 

 the charm of the social circle, and one in whose solitary 

 companionship you never tired. His correspondence was 

 equally entertaining, and reminded one of some of the best 

 models of the old English letter-writers. His charity to 

 wards his fellow-men was a striking feature in his character. 

 He not only lived up to the posthumous injunction against 

 evil speaking, but he abstained from it in respect to the 

 living. He encountered opposition of opinion without the 

 smallest discomposure, as if satisfied that all knowledge was 

 not yet attainable, and that nothing but the truth would 

 at last stand. He never manifested the common phases of 

 literary ambition, but seemed quite satisfied to lead a life 

 of general usefulness to mankind. And I think he was as 

 far removed as any one I have known from the vulgar im 

 putation of making activity a life-labor for reward. At least 

 the compensations on which he fixed his eyes were lofty 

 and remote, and such perhaps as might be inferred from a 

 remark he made to me respecting a common friend, who 

 under circumstances of great difficulty had procured the 

 freedojp3t-flff"T hfgvbjv^fe^ed and almost white young man 

 ^^(jLtl^r^'fcloilliQa^wlie^ were on the eve of being 

 )ld mto distant slavery.^ "y^hat," said he, " is an action 



I B R A R y 1 



^ *ri o * \ r CA\ * ,/ 



