XXXY111 MEMOIR. 



me always afterward, the symbols of his character. A 

 cloud wrapped his inner life. Motives, and the deeper feel- 

 ings, were lost to view in that ohscurity. It seemed that 

 within this cloud there might be desperate struggles, like 

 the battle of the Huns and Komans, invisible in the air, but 

 of which no token escaped into the experience of his friends. 

 He confronted circumstances with the same composed and 

 indomitable resolution, and it was not possible to tell whether 

 he were entertaining angels, or wrestling with demons, in 

 the secret chambers of his soul. There are passages in 

 letters to his wife which indicate, and they only by impli- 

 cation, that his character was tried and tempered by strug- 

 gles. Those most intimate letters, however, are full of 

 expressions of religious faith and dependence, sometimes 

 uttered with a kind of clinging earnestness, as if he well 

 knew the value of the peace that passes understanding. 

 But nothing of all this appeared in his friendly inter- 

 course with men. He had, however, very few intimate 

 friends among men. His warmest and most confiding 

 friendships were with women. In his intercourse \\ith 

 them, he revealed a rare and beautiful sense of the uses 

 of friendship, which united him very closely to them. To 

 men he was much more inaccessible. It cannot be denied 

 that the feeling of mystery in his character affected the im- 

 pression he made upon various persons. It might be called 

 as before, " haughtiness/' " reserve," " coldness/ 7 or 

 " hardness," but it was quite the same thing. It re- 

 pelled many who were otherwise most strongly attracted 

 to him by his books. In others, still, it begot a slight dis- 

 trust, and suspicion of self-seeking upon his part. 



I remember a little circumstance, the impression of 

 which is strictly in accordance with my feeling of this sin- 

 gular mystery in his character. We had one day been 



