840 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! work! all day; and that - 
nobody could understand what the poor old fool was doing 
with his wheels and his stupid machines.’ 
“T 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 manner. 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! 
“JT 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 througk material means, 
