company of young people, to whom his playful humour and gentle consideration made him very winning.
In early youth he was careless in his dress, and expressed contempt for those who judged of a man by his outward appearance. "But," he said, "I soon perceived the folly of this carelessness;" and in later years he became scrupulously neat in his attire. His enjoyment of the pleasures of the table was refined: he liked good wine; he carved well, and entertained generously; and he was never more genial, humorous, or interesting, than when surrounded by friends about a well-served board.
N. P. Willis, of the Home Journal, said to a friend, speaking of Maury, after travelling with him out West for four or five days:—
"He made me subject to his personal magnetism, and while with him I had secretly vowed myself and my pen to the service of his interests and reputation thenceforward. . . . During the time that we were together on that trip, he was, unconsciously to himself, to me an exquisitely interesting study of character. I had long heard of him, and knew what the public generally knew of his pursuits; but my conviction was strengthened every day that he was greatly undervalued by common repute, and that he was of a far deeper intellect, and much more of a natural philosopher, than the world, with all his repute, gave him credit for. . . . Under his exceeding modesty and reserve, there seemed to be a vein of the heroic and romantic so hidden, that he was seemingly unconscious of it, and I was quite sure before I parted with him that he was one of the sans peur et sans reproche class of men; yet willing to pass for only the industrious man of science which the world takes him for. Under the strong magnetism of his sincere and simple manner, I formed an irresistible attachment to him, and longed to set the world right as to his qualities."
