MEMOIR. XXIX 



for the study, or the garden. His welcoming smile was 

 reserved, but genuine, his manner singularly hearty and 

 quiet, marked by the easy elegance and perfect savoir 

 faire which would have adorned the Escurial. We passed 

 into the library. The book-shelves were let into the wall, and 

 the doors covered with glass. They occupied only part of 

 the walls, and upon the space above each was a bracket 

 with busts of Dante, Milton, Petrarch, Franklin, Linnaeus, 

 and Scott. There was a large bay window opposite the 

 fireplace. The forms and colors of this room were delight- 

 ful. It was the retreat of an elegantly cultivated gentle- 

 man. There were no signs of work except a writing-table, 

 with pens, and portfolios, and piles of letters. 



Here we sat and conversed. Our host entered into 

 every subject gayly and familiarly, with an appreciating 

 deference to differences of opinion, and an evident tenacity 

 of his own, all the while, which surprised me, as the pecu- 

 liarity of the most accomplished man of the world. There 

 was a certain aristocratic hauteur in his manner, a constant 

 sense of personal dignity, which comported with the reserve 

 of his smile and the quiet welcome. His intellectual atti- 

 tude seemed to be one of curious criticism, as if he were 

 sharply scrutinizing all that his affability of manner drew 

 forth. No one had a readier generosity of acknowledgment, 

 and there was a negative flattery in his address and atten- 

 tion, which was very subtle and attractive. In all allu- 

 sions to rural affairs, and matters with which he was entirely 

 familiar, his conversation was not in the slightest degree 

 pedantic, nor positive. He spoke of such things with the 

 simplicity of a child talking of his toys. The workman, 

 the author, the artist, were entirely subjugated in him to 

 the gentleman. That was his favorite idea. The gentle- 

 man was the full flower, of which all the others were sug- 



