None of you will ever forget
that bold glowing style of his, flowing free from his untutored soul,
full of metaphors (though he knew not what a metaphor was), with all
manner of potent words.... Nothing did I ever hear him undertake to
render visible which did not become almost ocularly so. Emphatic I have
heard him beyond all men. In anger he had no need of oaths: his words
were like sharp arrows that smote into the very heart. The fault was that
he exaggerated (which tendency I also inherit), yet in description, and
for the sake chiefly of humorous effect. He was a man of rigid, even
scrupulous veracity.... He was never visited with doubt. The old Theorem
of the Universe was sufficient for him ... he stood a true man, while
his son stands here on the verge of the new.... A virtue he had which
I should learn to imitate: he never spoke of what was disagreeable and
past. His was a healthy mind. He had the most open contempt for all
"clatter."... He was irascible, choleric, and we all dreaded his wrath,
but passion never mastered him.... Man's face he did not fear: God he
always feared. His reverence was, I think, considerably mixed with
fear--rather awe, as of unutterable depths of silence through which
flickered a trembling hope.... Let me learn of him. Let me write my books
as he built his houses, and walk as blamelessly through this shadow
world.
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