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��INTRODUCTION
��the small cunning of the country mind ; but he let its occasional petty impositions on himself go unreproved and apparently undetected, except when he dropped some jest or biting sarcasm for my private benefit. He was always a kind and goodnatured neighbor, and cherished a sincere esteem for many of his fellow-townsmen, among whom he chose to make his legal domicile. In fact, he had a deep affection for this home of his ancestors, and often spoke to me in those years of the benefactions, afterwards realized by the faithful devotion of Miss Randall to her brother's memory, which he meditated towards the town of Stow.
Nothing could surpass the piquancy and brilliancy, sometimes the whimsicality and even extravagance, of Randall's conversation. Wit and imagination sparkled through his talk on the gravest as well as on the most trivial topics, and sometimes ran away with him, par- ticularly if opposed. To question a statement of his in an antagonistic tone at once invited a re-statement of it with twofold emphasis, usually with additions still more startling. But I never knew a mind more candid or reasonable in the main. Reverence for truth was its pre- dominant trait. I never opposed him in an offensive way, or felt the slightest impulse to do so ; I was a charmed listener to his long monologues, understood him, made my own mental allowances for the sometimes too vividly colored assertions, and appreciated the essential ration- ality of his real meaning.
For this reason we had no quarrels. Never but in one instance, so far as I can remember, did we ever approach the brink of one. In the summer of 1853, we took together a ten days' walking trip through the White Mountain region, starting at Plymouth, following up the Pemigewasset Valley, climbing Mount Lafayette, passing
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