his face bony; a long, high, somewhat beaked nose was the feature of his countenance:—a good conceit of himself, I concluded, and I considerable will-power, for the chin was well-defined and large; but I got nothing more than this and from his clear steadfast gray eyes, an intense impression of kindness and good will, and why shouldn't I say it? of sweetness even, as of a soul lifted high above earth's carking cares and strugglings.
"A nice old fellow", I said to myself, "but deaf as a post."
Many years later his deafness became to me the symbol and explanation of his genius. He had always lived "the life removed" and kept himself unspotted from the world: that explains both his narrowness of sympathy and the height to which he grew! His harrow, pleasantly smiling face comes back to me whenever I hear his name mentioned.
But at the time I was indignant with his deafness and out of temper with Smith because he didn't notice it and seemed somehow to make himself cheap. When we went away, I cried: "The old fool is as deaf as a post!" "Ah, that was the explanation then of his stereotyped smile and peculiar answers", cried Smith, "how did you divine it?"
'He put his hand to his ear more than once,", I replied.
"So he did", Smith exclaimed, "how foolish of me not to have drawn the obvious inference!"
It was in this fall, I believe, that the Gregorys went off to Colorado. I felt the loss of Kate a good deal at first; but she had made no deep impression on my mind and the new life in Philadelphia and my journalistic work left me but little time for regrets and as she never wrote to me, following doubtless her mother's advice, she soon drifted out of my memory.
