He once said, "Whenever I look in the glass I feel a
depression of spirits"; but his friends did not feel so. He was always
an agreeable object to them, even in his last years when he looked in
his study like an old eagle in his eyrie. Mental power is more
attractive than beauty even to ladies.
He was a modern Stoic, and carried that kind of life to a high degree of
perfection. He sometimes smoked a cigar, and sometimes drank a glass of
wine, but the only real luxury he indulged in was dining with the
Atlantic Club once a month in Boston. During his lecturing tours he was
the recipient of a great deal of hospitality, and became the objective
centre of many a social gathering; but how much he enjoyed this it would
be difficult to tell. He was too modest and genuine to like being
lionized. He had neither pride, vanity, nor self-conceit; and his great
celebrity never weighed heavily upon him, or discovered itself in his
manners. In this respect he carried his stoicism a little too far, for
he never would permit any one to talk with him about himself, and
enthusiastic admirers of his genius commonly met with a rather cold
reception. He repelled everything in the shape of a compliment. Dr.
Edward Emerson says somewhere that his father was used to eat whatever
was set before him with Spartan-like indifference. This mistake may have
arisen from the good quality of Mrs.
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