第88章

I should not do justice to his own idea of himself if I did not add that he was most respectably connected, and that he had a justifiable though feeble pride in his family.It helped his self-respect, which no ignoble circumstances could destroy.He was, as must appear by this time, a most intelligent man, and he was a well-informed man;that is to say, he read the weekly newspapers when he could get them, and he had the average country information about Beecher and Greeley and the Prussian war (" Napoleon is gettin' on't, ain't he?"), and the general prospect of the election campaigns.Indeed, he was warmly, or rather luke-warmly, interested in politics.He liked to talk about the inflated currency, and it seemed plain to him that his condition would somehow be improved if we could get to a specie basis.He was, in fact, a little troubled by the national debt; it seemed to press on him somehow, while his own never did.He exhibited more animation over the affairs of the government than he did over his own,--an evidence at once of his disinterestedness and his patriotism.He had been an old abolitionist, and was strong on the rights of free labor, though he did not care to exercise his privilege much.Of course he had the proper contempt for the poor whites down South.I never saw a person with more correct notions on such a variety of subjects.He was perfectly willing that churches (being himself a member), and Sunday-schools, and missionary enterprises should go on; in fact, I do not believe he ever opposed anything in his life.No one was more willing to vote town taxes and road-repairs and schoolhouses than he.If you could call him spirited at all, he was public-spirited.

And with all this he was never very well; he had, from boyhood, "enjoyed poor health." You would say he was not a man who would ever catch anything, not even an epidemic; but he was a person whom diseases would be likely to overtake, even the slowest of slow fevers.And he was n't a man to shake off anything.And yet sickness seemed to trouble him no more than poverty.He was not discontented; he never grumbled.I am not sure but he relished a "spell of sickness" in haying-time.

An admirably balanced man, who accepts the world as it is, and evidently lives on the experience of others.I have never seen a man with less envy, or more cheerfulness, or so contented with as little reason for being so.The only drawback to his future is that rest beyond the grave will not be much change for him, and he has no works to follow him.

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