rather to literature than
to Government employment, he remarked, 'You may write off the first
joints of your fingers for them, and then you may write off the second
joints, and all that they will say of you is, "What a remarkably
short-fingered man!"'[42] But he had far too much self-respect to
grumble at the inevitable results of the position.

My father, however, was a man of exquisitely sensitive nature--a man, as
my mother warned his children, 'without a skin,' and he felt very keenly
the attacks of which he could take no notice. In early days this had
shown itself by a shyness 'remarkable,' says Taylor, beyond all 'shyness
that you could imagine in anyone whose soul had not been pre-existent in
a wild duck.'[43] His extreme sensibility showed itself too in other
ways. He was the least sanguine of mankind. He had, as he said in a
letter, 'a morbidly vivid perception of possible evils and remote
dangers.' A sensitive nature dreads nothing so much as a shock, and
instinctively prepares for it by always anticipating the worst. He
always expected, if I may say so, to be disappointed in his
expectations. The tendency showed itself in a general conviction that
whatever was his own must therefore be bad. He could not bear to have a
looking-glass in his room lest he should be reminded of his own
appearance. 'I hate mirrors vitrical and human,' he says, when wondering
how he might appear to others. He could not bear that his birthday
should be even noticed, though he did not, like Swift, commemorate it by
a remorseful ceremonial. He shrank from every kind of self-assertion;
and in matters outside his own province often showed to men of abilities
very inferior to his own a deference which to those who did not know him
might pass for affectation. The life of a recluse had strong attractions
for him. He was profoundly convinced that the happiest of all lives was
that of a clergyman, who could devote himself to study and to the quiet
duties of his profession. Circumstances had forced a different career
upon him. He had as a very young man taken up a profession which is not
generally supposed to be propitious to retiring modesty; and was ever
afterwards plunged into active business, which brought him into rough
contact with politicians and men of business of all classes. The result
was that he formed a manner calculated to shield himself and keep his
interlocutors at a distance. It might be called pompous, and was at any
rate for