ways seemed to me an
ideal dwelling for such a bachelor-scholar. Here in May and June he
became almost one with the resurgent vegetation. Here, in October, he
was a witness of the jewelled pageant of the dying foliage, and saw the
hillsides reeking, as it were, and aflame with ruby and gold and
emerald and topaz. One September day in 1900, at the "Kurhaus" at
Nauheim, I took up a copy of the Paris _New York Herald_, and read in
capitals: "Death of Professor Thomas Davidson." I had well known how
ill he was, yet such was his vitality that the shock was wholly
unexpected. I did not realize till that moment how much that free
companionship with him every spring and autumn, surrounded by that
beautiful nature, had signified to me, or how big a piece would be
subtracted from my life by its cessation.

Davidson's capacity for imparting information seemed endless. There
were few subjects, especially "humanistic" subjects, in which at some
time or other he had not taken an interest; and as everything that had
ever touched him was instantaneously in reach of his omnipotent memory,
he easily became a living dictionary of reference. As such all his
friends were wont to use him. He was, for example, never at a loss to
supply a quotation. He loved poetry passionately, and the sympathetic
voice with which he would recall page after page of it--English,
French, German, or Italian--is a thing always to be remembered. But
notwithstanding the instructive part he played in every conceivable
conversation, he was never prolix, and he never "lectured."

From Davidson I learned what immunities a perfect memory bestows upon
one. I never could discover when he amassed his learning for he never
seemed "occupied." The secret of it was that any odd time would do,
for he never had to acquire a thing twice over. He avoided stated
hours of work on principle. Reprehending (mildly) a certain chapter of
my own on "Habit," he said that it was a fixed rule with him to form no
regular habits. When he found himself in danger of settling into even
a good one, he made a point of interrupting it. Habits and methods
make a prisoner of a man, destroy his readiness, keep him from
answering the call of the fresh moment. Individualist _a outrance_,
Davidson felt that every hour was an unique entity, to whose claims one
should lie open. Thus he was never abstracted or preoccupied, but
always seemed, when with you, as if you were the one person who