ar of
Harvard, and [69] able mathematician, and one of the most genial and
lovable men that ever lived.

Life, in our quiet little town, was more leisurely than it is in cities,
and the consequence was an unusual development of amusing qualities.
There was more fun, and I ventured sometimes to say, there was more
wit, in New Bedford than there was in Boston. To be sure, we could
not pretend to compare with Boston in culture and in high and fine
conversation, least of all in music, which was at a very low ebb with
us. I remember being at an Oratorio in one of our churches, where the
trump of Judgment was represented by a horn not much louder than a
penny-whistle, blown in an obscure corner of the building!

Charles H. Warren was the prince of humorists among us, and would have
been so anywhere. Channing said to me one day, "I want to see your
friend Warren; I want to see him as you do." I could not help replying,
"That you never will; I should as soon expect to hear a man laugh in a
cathedral." I never knew a man quite so full of the power to entertain
others in conversation as he was. Lemuel Williams, his brother lawyer,
had perhaps a subtler wit. But the way Warren would go on, for a whole
evening, letting off bon-mots, repartees, and puns, made one think of a
magazine of pyrotechnics. Yet he was a man of serious thought and fine
intellectual powers. He was an able lawyer, and, placed upon the bench
at an uncommonly, early [70] age, he sustained himself with honor. I
used to lament that he would not study more, that he gave himself up
so much to desultory reading; but he had no ambition. Yet, after all, I
believe that the physical organization has more to do with every man's
career than is commonly suspected. His was very delicate, his complexion
fair, and his face, indeed, was fine and expressive in a rare degree.
The sanguine-bilious, I think, is the temperament for deep intellectual
power, like Daniel Webster's. It lends not only strength, but
protection, to the workings of the mind within. It is not too sensitive
to surrounding impressions. Concentration is force. Long, deep,
undisturbed thinking, alone can bring out great results. I have been
accustomed to criticise my own temperament in this respect, too easily
drawn aside from study by circumstances, persons, or things around me,
external interests or trifles, the wants and feelings of others, or
their sports, a playing child or a crowing cock. My mind, such as