Page:Life of Isaiah V Williamson.djvu/68

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Life of Isaiah V. Williamson

words on a page, all written with neatness in a small, round hand, clear as print, the i's being dotted and the t's crossed with punctilious care.

Apparently he was out to see everything that was to be seen. If he reached a city in the late afternoon, he must start right at sightseeing that very evening. Naturally, he gives larger space to the prolonged sight-seeing in such cities as London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Edinburgh and Dublin. Everywhere he visited cathedrals, art galleries, theatres, business houses, factories, wharves, charitable institutions; and expressed himself with sympathetic shrewdness about what he saw. He had his positive opinions and comparisons as to the good, bad and indifferent in art, music, oratory and ceremonial. His appreciative comments on the great men of history, literature and art, as well as on living personages he saw, were brief and passing. But they were enough to show that he was not only well informed but often held a point of view that was peculiarly his own. He did not just echo the words of the guide, the guide book, or the work he was reading. As a