LITTLE I think I know exactly how Alfred Russel Wallace then 

 JOURNEYS felt, from the touchstone of my own experience, and I 

 think I know how he looked, too, all confirmed by an 

 East Aurora incident. 



Some years ago, one fine day in May, I was helping 

 excavate for the foundation of a new barn. All at once 

 I felt that some one was standing behind me looking at 

 me. I turned around and there was a tall, lithe, slender 

 youth in a faded college cap, blue flannel shirt, ragged 

 trousers and top boots. 



My first impression of him was that he was a fellow 

 who slept in his clothes a plain " Weary " but when 

 he spoke there was a note of self-reliance in his low, 

 well-modulated voice that told me he was no mendi- 

 cant. Voice is the true index of character. 

 " My name is Wallace and I have a note to you from 

 my father" and he began diving into pockets, and 

 finally produced a ragged letter that was nearly worn 

 out through long contact with a perspiring human form 

 divine or partially so. 



I seldom make mad haste about reading letters of in- 

 troduction, and so I greeted the young man with a word 

 of welcome, and gave him a chance to say something 

 for himself. 



He was English that was very sure, and Oxford English 

 at that. " You see," he began, " I am working just now 

 over on the Hamburg & Buffalo Electric Line, string- 

 ing wires. I get three dollars a day because I 'm a fairly 

 good climber. I wanted to learn the business, so I just 

 hired out as a laborer, and they gave me the hardest 

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