oys sprang up in the
atmosphere of generous sentiments and transparent truth. The tutor was
in harmony with the parents,--a soldier every inch of him; not a mere
disciplinarian, yet with a profound sense of duty, and a knowledge that
duty is to be found in attention to details. In inculcating the habit
of subordination, so graceful to the young, he knew how to make himself
beloved, and what is harder still, to be understood. The soul of this
poor soldier was white and unstained, as the arms of a maiden knight;
it was full of suppressed but lofty enthusiasm. He had been ill used,
whether by Fate or the Horse Guards; his career had been a failure; but
he was as loyal as if his hand held the field-marshal's truncheon, and
the garter bound his knee. He was above all querulous discontent. From
him, no less than from his parents, Percival caught, not only a spirit
of honour worthy the antiqua fides of the poets, but that peculiar
cleanliness of thought, if the expression may be used, which belongs to
the ideal of youthful chivalry. In mere booklearning, Percival, as may
be supposed, was not very extensively read; but his mind, if not largely
stored, had a certain unity of culture, which gave it stability and
individualized its operations. Travels, voyages, narratives of heroic
adventure, biographies of great men, had made the favourite pasture of
his enthusiasm. To this was added the more stirring, and, perhaps, the
more genuine order of poets who make you feel and glow, rather than
doubt and ponder. He knew at least enough of Greek to enjoy old Homer;
and if he could have come but ill through a college examination into
Aeschylus and Sophocles, he had dwelt with fresh delight on the rushing
storm of spears in the "Seven before Thebes," and wept over the heroic
calamities of Antigone. In science, he was no adept; but his clear
good sense and quick appreciation of positive truths had led him easily
through the elementary mathematics, and his somewhat martial spirit had
made him delight in the old captain's lectures on military tactics. Had
he remained in the navy, Percival St. John would doubtless have been
distinguished. His talents fitted him for straightforward, manly action;
and he had a generous desire of distinction, vague, perhaps, the moment
he was taken from his profession, and curbed by his diffidence in
himself and his sense of deficiencies in the ordinary routine of purely
classical education. Still, he had in him all