“Most of his voluminous writings were thus freely submitted to the family council, or copied by them, and each one invited and encouraged to criticise; and thus, not only were they made familiar with the workings of his mind but were taught to express their own thoughts. He wrote or composed and dictated his greatest books in his parlor, 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 forever 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 these 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 center 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 his 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 parlors wrapped in a light blue silk Japanese dressing-gown, quilted with eider down, which was a present from Captain Jansen, the long ribbons, which should have been fastened around his waist, trailing behind him, or gathered up like reins in the hands of one of the little ones, who trotted after him, backwards and forwards, calling out ‘Gee, woa!’ or ‘Back, sir!’—he paying not the slightest attention, but dictating gravely.
“He used to say he was the youngest of the family except the baby, and it was his habit, when dressing in the morning, to seat the youngest (the little two-year-old) upon the bureau, to hold the soap while he was shaving; while the rest would stand around, one to hold or receive the razor, one the brush, one the towel, and one or two the papers on which to wipe the razor; and we all would eagerly watch the pile of lather which he made with the soap and hot water in his shaving-can. He brushed his bald head with two immense brushes at the same time, one in each hand. ‘For’, he assured us gravely, ‘you see, if I only use one at a time, it will turn me round and round like one oar in a boat’. And we believed that that was the only way to brush hair. Then he would tell us stories and anecdotes about his brothers and himself—what they did and what they said in Tennessee, and of his home life there. These stories he would tell over and over again, fitting them to the comprehension of the ‘two-year-old’, as she or he would come on, until we knew them by heart, and, with a clamor of tongues, would set him right if he omitted any incident or related it in the wrong order. And we knew exactly when to laugh and applaud, and enjoyed it all the more because it was so familiar.
“Often he would take the whole tribe out for long walks, or to gather fruit or nuts, or bright-colored leaves; and to reach the high ones he would make what he called a ‘Tennessee arm’, which was a long pole with a crutch at the end, with which he could twist them off, directing us where to stand and hold up our little pinafores to catch the coveted prize; and then what laughter and hurrahs and congratulations would be bestowed upon the fortunate catcher! He had pet names for all except the eldest; he said she grew up too fast for him to fit a name to her. There were ‘Nannie Curly’, ‘Goggen’, ‘Davy Jones’, ‘Totts’, ‘Glum’, ‘Brave’, and ‘Sat Sing’. By these names he always called us, and we knew we had displeased him, and hung our heads with shame, if he gave us our baptismal ones.
“I don’t think I ever went to school more than three months altogether. He was my loving and tender teacher always; and when Betty and I grew to be fifteen or thereabouts, we had to take care of one or two of the younger ones and teach them to read, write, and cipher, yet without allowing this duty to interfere with our own lessons or our regular tasks of sewing. He taught us our lessons at the breakfast table, and for an hour or so afterwards, his plan being to bid us—my sister Betty and myself—‘one at a time, tell him about the lesson’. He seldom asked us questions on it, unless we found a difficulty in expressing ourselves, and he never asked those put down in the book. After both had had our say, he would, taking the lesson for a text, deliver the most delightful lectures. He prescribed no set time for our preparation of these lessons; but we were required to master them thoroughly, and give the substance to him clothed in our own words and not in those of the book. He always expected and required that we should not prepare them at night, but should then come into the parlor to receive and entertain and be entertained by the distinguished men and women who frequently gathered round him. He considered this a most important part of our education.
“He objected to the introduction of cards in the family circle, as he said they interfered with intelligent and improving conversation, and that those who had recourse to them for amusement were apt to depend on them, and could not exert themselves to be agreeable as they should and would do, if they had not this entertainment. He himself did not know one card from another. Our Mother taught us our Bible lessons and catechism, and she and Aunt Eliza, who was a beautiful needlewoman, gave us regular tasks in mending and darning. We seldom went to church more than once on Sunday, as it was so far from the Observatory to St. John’s (Reverend Doctor Pynes); so Papa had us up regularly for the evening service, which we would read verse about, ‘the stranger that was within our gates’ generally taking part also....
“He would never allow us to read works of fiction whilst we were students, and would punish most severely any departure from the truth, or act of disobedience. These two sins, he said, were the only ones he intended to punish his children for; and he was very careful not to make unnecessary issues with them, and never to give an order unless he saw that it was obeyed and not forgotten. A punishment which he inflicted once on Betty and myself I shall never forget. Betty borrowed ‘Helen’, one of a very handsome and complete set of Miss Edgeworth’s novels, from cousin Sally Fontaine in Washington, thinking, or persuading herself, that Papa would not object, as that was so mild a type of fiction, and we both read most of it. He found us at it one Saturday. He didn’t say one word, but took the book, and one of us in each hand, marched us downstairs into Mamma’s room, and, to our horror, thrust the handsome borrowed book into the flames, and held it there with the tongs until it was entirely consumed. Oh, how we did cry! It seemed such a terrible thing to burn a book—a priceless book—of which we had so few. Then our honor was touched to the quick, for we had borrowed it. But for those very reasons the lesson cut deep, and made the impression that was intended. I for one would gladly have taken a whipping instead, to be allowed to return the book uninjured”.[13]
Whatever sternness Maury displayed toward his children, it was so tempered with gentleness and loving consideration that it did not detract at all from the ideal relationship existing between them. When his two oldest daughters were married and left their father’s home, he saw to it that the loving ties which bound them to the rest of the family were kept as strong as ever; and the letters which he wrote to them were filled with the tenderest and sincerest expressions of affection and the most tactfully worded counsel and advice. For example, he wrote to one of them, “That you are both poor is no ground of solicitude; happiness is above riches, and if you are not happy, being poor, wealth would not, I apprehend, make you happy. Poverty has its virtues, and my struggles with it are full of pleasant remembrances. I hope your experience will tally with mine. I do not say, strive to be content, for in that there is no progression; but be content to strive”. At another time he wrote, “I am writing you a very disjointed letter, my love, but I have been thinking so much of you, and missing you so sorely, and loving you so tenderly, since you went away, and my heart was so full, and my head so empty, that I hardly know what I have said. Did you plant the yellow jasmine at Farleyvale? ’Tis the grand scion of the one I courted your Mother under, and I wish it, or a slip from it, to be planted over my grave”. This request was carried out, and the flower grew over his grave for six or seven years until it was killed during an extremely cold winter. The entire story of Maury’s home life seems almost too nearly perfect to be true, but diligent search of all available records has failed to disclose anything which would detract from the portrayal of him as always the true, considerate, loving husband and father.