BRAIN AND HANDS AT WORK. 71 



ou a monument than a scrutiniser of the proceedings ; 

 in private life he was disposed to taciturnity, except- 

 ing at home and among his own fraternity, where he 

 enjoyed the humorous and the jocular with as much 

 pleasure and risibility as his neighbours. His brain 

 was large, and this active organ was engaged for six- 

 teen or eighteen hours a-day, and often at high pressure 

 — that damaging speed to humanity hastening to the 

 goal of scientific discovery. In the ordinary relations 

 of the world, he appeared retired and unassuming ; but 

 in the unreserved freedom of confidential intimacy, he 

 showed himself possessed of a fair estimate of his own 

 powers. It is no disparagement to say that he recog- 

 nised his own talents, for the consciousness of power 

 is not undesirable as a useful weapon with which to 

 fight the battle of life. He possessed intellectual su- 

 periority, and was not without ambition to display it ; 

 occasionally the belief in his own powers carried him 

 beyond his strength or hopes of attainment. In future 

 pages it will be seen that the variety as well as num- 

 ber of his tentative efforts stood in the way of his 

 rendering them so perfect and complete as they should 

 have been, if he aimed them to be historical. His 

 hands, colossal in size and muscular power, and not 

 less fine in delicacy of action, were fitting instruments 

 to his 1 »iain, and often in happy co-ordination with its 

 manifold manifestations. When discussing science or 

 theology, where the argument became warm and he 

 was fairly in earnest, th*' big hand was raised signifi- 

 < ,nii l\ bo i upporl lii - dictum or his dogma. 



