s; out of those
sent in he selected two or three, which he then read aloud and
criticised; and once, when they happened to agree, remarked
there was always a coincidence of thought amongst great men.
Out of school he never mixed with the boys, but was sometimes
seen, to their astonishment, running along the fields with his
arms outstretched, and talking to himself. He had no pet
scholars except one, a little fair-haired boy, who he said
ought to have been a girl. He told me that was the only boy he
ever loved, though he always loved little girls. He was
remarkably fond of the travelling shows that occasionally
visited the village. I have seen him clap his hands with
delight; indeed, in most of the simple delights of country
life, he was like a child. This is what occurs to me at present
of what he was when I first knew him; and, indeed, my after
recollections are of a similarly fragmentary kind, consisting
only of those little, numerous, noiseless, every-day acts of
kindness, the sum of which makes a Christian life. His love of
little children, his sympathy with the poor and suffering, his
hatred of oppression, the beauty and the grace of his
politeness before women, and his high manliness,--these are the
features which I shall never forget while I have any thing to
remember."

The same writer afterwards tells us:

"On his way to one of these parties he called on me, and I
could not help saying, 'How well you look in a white
neckcloth!' 'I wish you could see me sometimes,' he replied;
'if I had only black-silk stockings and shoe-buckles I should
be quite a gentleman.' Those who had only seen him in the
careless dress that he chose to adopt in the lanes--his
trowsers, which were generally too long, doubled half way up
the leg, unbrushed, and often splashed; his hat brushed the
wrong way, for he never used an umbrella; and his wild,
unshaven, weather-beaten look--were amazed at his metamorphose
into such a faultless gentleman as he appeared when he was
dressed for the evening. 'I hate silver forks with fish,' he
said; 'I can't manage them.' So did Dr. Arnold, I told him.
'That's capital; I am glad of such an authority. Do you know I
never understood the gladiator's excellence till the other day.
The way in which my brother eats fis