Chauncey Wright. 107 



ments, but there was no telling how or where it 

 would end. At two o'clock in the morning he 

 would perhaps take his hat and saunter home- 

 ward with me by way of finishing the subject ; 

 but on reaching my gate a new suggestion would 

 turn us back, and so we would alternately es- 

 cort each other home perhaps a dozen times, until 

 tired Nature asserted her rights, and the newly 

 opening vistas of discussion were regretfully left 

 unexplored. 



I never knew an educated man who set so little 

 store by mere reading, except Mr. Herbert Spen- 

 cer ; but, like Mr. Spencer, whom he resembled in 

 little else, Mr. Wright had an incomprehensible 

 way of absorbing all sorts of knowledge, great 

 and small, until the number of diverse subjects on 

 which he could instruct even trained specialists 

 was quite surprising. There were but few topics 

 on which he had not some acute suggestion to 

 offer ; and with regard to matters of which he 

 was absolutely ignorant such as music his 

 general good sense and his lack of impulsiveness 

 prevented his ever talking foolishly. 



This lack of impulsiveness, a kind of physical 

 and intellectual inertness, counted for a great deal 

 both in his excellences and in his shortcomings. 

 His movements were slow and ponderous, his 



