232 A Century of Science 



ing a sovereign scorn for every physical weakness 

 or defect, deceived moreover by a rapid develop- 

 ment of frame and sinews which flattered him with 

 the belief that discipline sufficiently unsparing 

 would harden him into an athlete, he slighted the 

 precautions of a more reasonable woodcraft, tired 

 old foresters with long marches, stopped neither 

 for heat nor rain, and slept on the earth without a 

 blanket." In other words, "a highly irritable 

 organism spurred the writer to excess in a course 

 which, with one of different temperament, would 

 have produced a free and hardy development of 

 such faculties and forces as he possessed." Along 

 with the irritable organism perhaps a heritage of 

 fierce ancestral Puritanism may have prompted him 

 to the stoical discipline which sought to ignore the 

 just claims of the physical body. He tells us of 

 his undoubting faith that " to tame the Devil, it is 

 best to take him by the horns ; " but more mature 

 experiences made him feel less sure " of the advan- 

 tages of this method of dealing with that subtle 

 personage." 



Under these conditions, perhaps the college vaca- 

 tions which he spent in the woods of Canada and 

 New England may have done more to exhaust than 

 to recruit his strength. In his Junior year, some 

 physical injury, the nature of which does not seem 



