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[309] the public stage. These scattered threads I will now draw together in such fashion as I can.

The lineaments of the boy were, as ordinarily happens, partly preserved and partly effaced in the man. My father's childish love of out-door sports naturally1 succumbed to the stern requirements of his twofold struggle for existence and for the cause which he founded. I recall his indulging in quoits while at the water-cure near2 Northampton, a game in which he was fairly skilful, as if by virtue of that balanced judgment which showed itself in so many other ways; and in later years he was fond of croquet. His love of skating utterly died out from3 disuse, but, what is perhaps surprising, his passion for swimming equally became a mere reminiscence, though his4 home was always by tide-water. Among indoor games, he enjoyed checkers as long as his children were interested in it; and to us he seemed a good player, but not an expert. In the evening of his life, whist afforded him solace for his failing eyesight; but in this he remained a tyro, and his naive revelations of the quality of his hand were most amusing.

I never saw my father draw even a diagram, and he had had not the least training in drawing; yet his penmanship was handsome, and wonderfully persistent in its5 uniformity. It was always, however, very labored and inflexible, and latterly he wrote much in pencil, having begun with quills, then taken to steel nibs, and sometimes used a gold pen. Greater suppleness in this art would have made writing much less abhorrent to him, and resulted in a far more copious editorial productiveness. But this was as much a matter of temperament as of manual proficiency. He had an innate love of thoroughness, which was developed in the printing-office and was6 fostered by his experience of bad ‘copy.’ His own manuscript was flawless, punctilious to the last degree, and as legible as the print itself. He seldom, except on grave occasions, resorted to a rough draft, but wrote almost without correction, his afterthought coming so quickly

1 Ante, 1.28, 314.

2 Ante, 3.228.

3 Ante, 1.28.

4 Ante, 1.28, 29.

5 Ante, 1.28; 3.397.

6 Ante, 1.40.

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