340 WILD SCENES AND "WILD HUNTERS. 



I met this man my husband. I had lived there for several 

 years, teaching the only regular school they had in the 

 country. I had, after a fearful struggle, gained a sort of 

 resignation. 



" But once I heard some ribald fellows of that rude society 

 ridiculing a "crazy old cove," as they called him. They said 

 he did nothing but ' work ! work I work ! all day ; and that 

 nobody could understand whal; the poor old fool was doing 

 with his wheels and his stupid machines.' 



" I at once determined to know this man ! To be abused 

 by such fellows was enough to persuade me in his favor. I 

 went to see him. I found him as you have seen him a 

 mighty intellect with a feeble physique ! We became friends 

 at once. My enthusiasm had only been ' driven in' so to 

 say, and now came rushing back to the surface of expression. 

 I found him alone, and almost helpless. He had no one to 

 care for him, and could not care for himself for, although 

 he possessed some means, he was too much abstracted to 

 notice minor details of comfort so he lived in the most pain- 

 fully squallid mariner. He did his own cooking, and made 

 his bed once a week for he would not have a servant about 

 him, because he feared he might disturb his work the 

 apparent chaos of which was his order ! 



" I talked with this man, for he talked then ! long and 

 eagerly. He told me much that satisfied me. He showed 

 me that the reform, for which so many true and devoted 

 spirits were really laboring, was a different thing from the 

 cant of the professional reformers. They prayed in public 

 places to be "seen of men;" they, who are in earnest, pray 

 in deeds, and not in words ; and neither do they let the right 

 hand know what the left hand doeth ! 



" He showed me that the popular schemes of reform were 

 all purely theoretical. That they could, and would accom- 

 plish nothing direct ! That all true reforms must begin in the 

 physical ! That men were moved only through material mean* 



