Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/164

150 his parlour, surrounded by his family, and it seemed sometimes as if he possessed a dual consciousness, so quickly could he abstract or concentrate his mind upon his writing.

Like few great men, he was the greater the closer one got to him. Little children approached him confidingly, and never left him without bearing away some good lesson, so gently and simply taught as to be for ever planted in their young minds. His especial pleasure was to say a kind word and lend a helping hand to young men beginning the battle of life.

Above all men, he knew the value of praise as an incentive to high endeavor, and when he had occasion to censure or criticise, he did it with such obvious reluctance that it never failed to do the good intended.

While at home, he had been taught to respect women, to love the truth, and to reverence God; and those teachings he never forgot. One of his daughters writes as follows:—

"He never had a study, or anything like a sanctum, where his wife and children could not come, preferring to work in the midst of them wherever they congregated. He would sit at the round marble-topped centre table, with his papers spread out, the bright light falling on his bald head and shining on his brown curls, while he sat unconscious of what was going on around him; whether it was music, or dancing, or reading aloud, or romping, he would write away, or read what he had written, or talk to himself and shake his head."

His daughters often served as Ms amanuenses, and sometimes he dictated to two at once, while one of the little ones would balance herself on the rounds of his chair, and curl his back hair over the red-and-blue pencil he always used.

Sometimes he would walk up and down the two parlours wrapped in a light blue silk Japanese dressing-gown, quilted with eider-down which was a present from Captain Jansen,