Page:James Thomason (Temple).djvu/25

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
INTRODUCTION
17

perceptive faculties which usually make scientific travellers or distinguished explorers. He could discern and note external objects of all kinds with surprising quickness and precision. He was an adept in criticism, and with him the habit of criticizing was unconquerable. His power of reasoning, retentive memory, aptitude for some kinds of physical science, would by themselves have entitled him to high rank. Together with this talent for dealing with things material, he possessed insight and intuition regarding mental subjects and moral philosophy, with much power of self-introspection. His proficiency in some of the most difficult among the classical languages of Asia proved that to whatever branch of learning he might bend his mind, there he would evince scholarship. Otherwise, in what is known as general culture, though by no means defective, he was not remarkable. In such a man imagination could not be dormant, indeed in some particular directions it was active; but in its relation to philosophy, poetry and art, he was not more than ordinarily endowed. The son of one who preached with eloquence, he had not inherited the oratorical power of his father. But he always made simply and well such official speeches as were required of him. He had the pen of a ready writer, but he undertook no literary work, and never essayed anything beyond official composition, in which he was most skilled. Though not a man of special genius or transcendent gifts, yet he had a winning personality. Even if