Page:Masterpieces of the sea (Morris, Richards, 1912).djvu/26

WILLIAM T. RICHARDS always strewed with books and his memory was strewed with their varied contents. But his favorite subject, with me, at least, was poetry, and among poets, of Wordsworth. He would quote short passages—I remember, of the "River Duddon" sonnets—and other beautiful and tranquil things, and talk on and on, lying back easily in his chair in the fullest enjoyment of the subject, until this would lead him to, perhaps, religion and creed and dogma, when he would utter those independent views of his in well-chosen fluency and show the fuller deeps of that ripe and original mind which had found so many secrets of the land and sea.

Even in youth this sympathy with every form of intellectual thought and work was evident. Thus he became one of the active members of "The Forensic and Literary Institute," formed of young debaters, several of whom afterwards made fame. One was Frank R. Stockton, the humorist and story-teller who invented "The Lady or the Tiger"; another was his brother, 14