Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/192

 1 84 INTRODUCTION

judgment and advice in all sorts of little matters, and it was good. When he sought mine, I was careful not to assume, and it was truly pleasant to be able to say I " did not know ; " for he a little looked up to me in some things, and I was fearful lest he should over-appraise me, and then he might grow less genial and confiding. When he saw he began to miss me when absent, I was glad that he wanted me, and was fain to become to him whatever he would. He out- grew after a time the child's habit of embracing, but, if he found his friend would caress him, he was not loth, if no stranger was near ; for love he wanted, and was little dis- posed to quarrel with the manner of expressing it, if only real. He loved to yield, and he loved to resist, and was capable of both as the case might require. He read char- acter quickly, and in little things ; perceived the ridiculous instantly ; was quick-witted in all manner of contrivance, merry and mirthful, sharp in jest, but careful not to wound ; could endure fatigue, and grew not irritable under it ; was alive in all his senses, and hence the most delightful of travelling companions.

His sense of honor was so nice that I studied myself in little matters with the more care, lest he find flaws in me, and the more because he would have been silent about them. This is another of the precious uses of young people, if they are what they should be : namely, that their senti- ments of right and wrong are much truer than in most older persons, who, having endured the friction of the world, become corrupted by it, and at last grov/ not only not ashamed of doing what is mean, but not even of being seen to do it. Alas, his innocence was his death ! Could he but have observed for a few weeks the movement of the springs which keep our base American political ma- chine in motion, he would have disdained the war and the wire-pullers that kept it in action.

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