ions which his desolate situation had produced.
Such situations bewilder and unnerve the weak, but call forth all the
strength of the strong. Surrounded by snares in which an ordinary youth
would have perished, William learned to tread at once warily and firmly.
Long before he reached manhood he knew how to keep secrets, how to
baffle curiosity by dry and guarded answers, how to conceal all passions
under the same show of grave tranquillity. Meanwhile he made little
proficiency in fashionable or literary accomplishments. The manners of
the Dutch nobility of that age wanted the grace which was found in
the highest perfection among the gentlemen of France, and which, in an
inferior degree, embellished the Court of England; and his manners were
altogether Dutch. Even his countrymen thought him blunt. To foreigners
he often seemed churlish. In his intercourse with the world in general
he appeared ignorant or negligent of those arts which double the
value of a favour and take away the sting of a refusal. He was little
interested in letters or science. The discoveries of Newton and
Leibnitz, the poems of Dryden and Boileau, were unknown to him. Dramatic
performances tired him; and he was glad to turn away from the stage
and to talk about public affairs, while Orestes was raving, or while
Tartuffe was pressing Elmira's hand. He had indeed some talent for
sarcasm, and not seldom employed, quite unconsciously, a natural
rhetoric, quaint, indeed, but vigorous and original. He did not,
however, in the least affect the character of a wit or of an orator. His
attention had been confined to those studies which form strenuous and
sagacious men of business. From a child he listened with interest when
high questions of alliance, finance, and war were discussed. Of geometry
he learned as much as was necessary for the construction of a ravelin or
a hornwork. Of languages, by the help of a memory singularly powerful,
he learned as much as was necessary to enable him to comprehend and
answer without assistance everything that was said to him, and every
letter which he received. The Dutch was his own tongue. He understood
Latin, Italian, and Spanish. He spoke and wrote French, English,
and German, inelegantly, it is true, and inexactly, but fluently and
intelligibly. No qualification could be more important to a man whose
life was to be passed in organizing great alliances, and in commanding
armies assembled from different countries.

One cl