erience of the world I have never met anyone in whom love
of truth was more deeply ingrained. On one occasion in his twelfth
year, when he was wrestling with an arithmetical problem--the only
branch of learning that ever gave him trouble was mathematics--and I
offered to help in its solution, he rejected my proffered aid with the
indignant remark: "Dad, how could I hand this prep. in as my own if
you had helped me to do it?" His generosity of spirit was displayed in
his eagerness to share his toys and books with other children; his
sensitiveness by his acute self-reproaches if he had been unkind to
anyone or had caused pain to his mother or his nurse.

Plymouth is a fine old city, beautifully situated and steeped in
historic memories. Our home was in Carlisle Avenue, just off the Hoe,
and on that spacious front Paul spent many happy hours as a small boy.
His young eyes gazed with fascination on the warships passing in and
out of Plymouth Sound, on the great passenger steamers lying at anchor
inside the Breakwater, or steaming up or down the Channel; on the
fishing fleet, with its brown sails, setting out to reap the harvest
of the sea; and when daylight faded in the short winter days he would
watch the Eddystone light--that diamond set in the forehead of
England--flashing its warning and greeting to "those who go down to
the sea in ships and do business in great waters." Always from the Hoe
there is something to captivate the eye--the wonder and beauty of the
unresting ocean; on the Cornish side the wooded slopes and green sward
of Mount Edgcumbe; on the Devon side Staddon Height, rising bold and
sheer from the water; looking landward the picturesque mass of houses,
towers, spires, turrets that is Plymouth, and far behind the outline
of the Dartmoor Hills. On the Hoe itself one's historic memories are
stirred by the Armada memorial and the Drake statue; close at hand
is the Citadel, the snout of guns showing through its embrasures; and
near by is Sutton Pool, whence the Pilgrim Fathers set forth in the
little _Mayflower_, carrying the English language and the principles
of civil and religious liberty across the stormy Atlantic.

All these sights and scenes and historical associations had their
influence on a bright and ardent boy in these impressionable years. He
soon got to be keenly interested in the Navy, amassed a surprising
amount of information about the types, engine strength and gun-power
of the principal warsh