490 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



'the surface of the stream, showing the depth of the flow 

 of conjugal happiness beneath, -would occur upon the 

 subject. I remember, for instance, that his hat was 

 once pronounced exceptionable, and that, by way of 

 providing himself with an ally against Mrs Miller on the 

 point, he had trained his son Hugh, just beginning to 

 toddle and to lisp, to say, 



' Papa has got a very bad hat, 

 And many a word he hears about that.' 



The impression formed in my mind was that Mr and 

 Mrs Miller were on exactly those terms on which it was 

 desirable and beautiful that a man eminent in the in- 

 tellectual world and his wife should be. 



By Hugh Miller's manner to myself I was fascin- 

 ated, and not a little surprised. He talked little and 

 heard much. It seemed to please him to observe the 

 lights cast on subjects by a younger mind ; the line of 

 my culture, also, was somewhat different from his own, 

 for I then cared comparatively little for science, and was 

 in a perpetual glow of enthusiasm about Shelley, Keats, 

 Tennyson, Carlyle, and Ruskin ; and my opinions, quietly 

 allowed to gush forth in the artless gabble of youth, 

 may have interested him as natural curiosities. Happily 

 I have forgotten my own remarks, unhappily also most 

 of his. He never spoke on the impulse of the moment, 

 though he never hesitated. The opinion had been con- 

 sidered long before, and put into its place in his 

 memory ; and it was brought out with a calm pre- 

 cision which suggested that he had ceased to discuss 

 the subject. His gentleness, his willingness to listen, 

 his intellectual tolerance and fine kind sympathy, took 

 captive my heart. This man, I felt, whatever else he 

 may or may not be, is a born gentleman. The idea 

 got hold of my mind, and in a sketch of Hugh Miller 



