When she was gone, those who treasured her memory said I resembled her; but it was only a faint reflection of her presence, such as we often see in children, for of all women she was the most beautiful in the world save one.
As a child I was shy, and because of it, disposed to be much alone; and to this day I love above everything else to mount my horse, and leaving the streets and public highways, seek out the nooks and restful corners of the cool and silent country. This love of being alone—if one can ever be said to be alone in the country—has not in any way lessened my liking for my fellow-men nor my delight in their company, but has served rather as a gentle antidote to the cares and vexations of an otherwise busy life. As a youth I was rosy-cheeked and inclined to be dull; but this is said ever to be the case with children having a fine color. Why this should be so, if it is indeed true, I leave to those versed in such things, for I can see no reason for it whatever. I loved to play, but not to study and because of these opposites, so conflicting and inopportune, I ever found it hard to keep up with my class in school. Reading I liked, but not arithmetic, while grammar made my head ache, and in spelling I tripped on the simplest words. It often fell out, therefore, that when the other children piled their books on the rude benches in the cool of the afternoon, and went their way with shouts and laughter I settled down to try again. At such times the teacher would sit back in her chair on the little platform and scowl clown on me in gloomy discontent, tapping the desk to relieve her angry feelings.
"You little beast!" she would sometimes say when thus cheated of her afternoon outing, "you are not half so stupid as you seem, though you are dull enough, goodness knows. You could learn if you wanted to, but you would rather watch the girls or look out of the windows than study—the more shame to you."
This was true enough as regards the girls, I know, but I hated her for all that; only I hated myself still more. As I grew in years my dullness so preyed upon me that in all my reflections on the great and desirable things in life. Smartness always stood foremost and the best of all. My affliction made me still more shy, until in time what was at first only a trait, became a habit, and one that I have never been able to quite throw off, though the vicissitudes of life and much intercourse with men have somewhat lessened its embarrassments. While on this subject I may say, going to the other extreme, that neither my dear wife nor my children will ever admit that I could have been dull in my youth, and at this I smile and even make believe; but they know little of human nature, and their skepticism only proves their love. For their disbelief grows out of the knowledge that in middle life I was able to take up whatever interested me and carry it forward to a more or less successful conclusion. This facility, however, came too late to enliven my childhood, and did not arise so much from any talent I possessed as from experience and reflection—things that come to all of us with mature years.
My amiability in youth, coupled with my lack of smartness, caused me to be much set upon by boys more precocious than I, and, in consequence, the quiet of my life was often rudely disturbed. For it is only truth to say that while my eyes may have been mild and my manner soft, I really had a very high temper if much stress was put upon it. Then, going to the other extreme, no situation of peril could prevent its blazing forth. At such times my rage, rising higher and higher, like a prairie fire, grew with what it fed upon, only to die away finally of shame or for want of something to keep it alive. These outbreaks occasioned me much self-abasement, and I would often cry out in agony at the excess of my passions, but without much if any good coming from it that I could see. Such temper was unknown to my early youth, or maybe it only lay dormant. For afterward, when fortune threw me, a stripling, into the world, I was so crowded and jostled about, as the unprotected are apt to be in such cases—and generally to their good—that from being mild and gentle, I became as fierce and intractable as a wild beast. However, I now look back upon this period with a sense of thankfulness that I did not become so wedded to its excesses as not to be conscious in the end that I could not thus get on in the world, but that sooner or later I should have it arrayed solidly against me. With the aid of such reflections and other help, and the fact that I was inclined to be affectionate if circumstances favored, I was in time able to resume some part of my old cheerfulness of manner. This, however, I believe, that to those who were kind to me, and in every case to those who were weak, I was never aught but gentle. For certainly, to the unfortunate my heart has ever gone out in sympathy; but how much of this feeling has been due in later years to the trials of my youth and how much to natural love of my kind, I cannot tell.
When young my health was a source of anxiety to my mother, and after I lost her, to those who interested themselves in my affairs, but without any great reason, I have always thought. As a young man my complexion was fair and my height not above the medium, but because of my active life I appeared somewhat taller than I really was. In face, my nose was aquiline, and much too delicate to buffet the world successfully, it was said by those wise in such matters. Of my mouth, it was full, and my chin inclined to be pointed rather than heavy. This last, the village phrenologist said, denoted a subtle disposition; but in this I think he was mistaken, though I may say that I ever possessed that peculiar sense which leads animals and some men to the adoption of measures necessary to their preservation, and this without their being conscious of its exercise. This trait is, however, an instinct, and not one of calculation. In great men and in large affairs something akin to it, but of a higher order, is called Apprehension. Thus the great foresee what is to happen, and doing so, turn it to their advantage.
My mother said my mouth indicated a love of artistic things, and in this she was clearly right so far as her own sex was concerned. For I have always held women in such high esteem that the least among them have ever commanded my love and respect. As a lad there was not a blithe, sweet-eyed girl who pored over her lessons in the log schoolhouse by the forest stream, about which my early recollections cluster, whom I did not look upon as a divinity. This feeling of love and respect for the dainty companions of my youth has ever been my conception of women, and now, when no longer young, I look upon them as angels sent to eke out our life after it has been robbed of the delusions of youth. This feeling men share in common, and it is due to contrast, and more particularly to woman's superior delicacy of mind and heart, and also to something else, I cannot tell what. For she is and ever will be an unfathomable mystery to us, try as we may to understand her.
This account of myself I have striven to make as favorable as I can, and if it is partial, you will attribute it to pride, and not to vanity. For while all men may be proud, no one should be vain, and the first for the reason that it is not altogether conscience or the love of right that keeps men from wrong. Pride is a great factor in such matters, and so far as that is true this brittle cactus, so unjustly reviled by the thoughtless, should be fertilized according to our needs.
Like all men born to live in the country, I have ever had the habit of trusting fair-spoken men. This has resulted to my disadvantage many times, but on the whole I have not been the loser by it. For the goose is bound to be plucked, and is none the worse for it in the end, while the feathers the rogue scatters along his path serve in some measure to indicate his whereabouts afterward to the trusting and simple-minded.
In my youth I was disregardful of money, and thus early acquired credit for generosity that did not belong to me. Because of this I have always believed that merit in giving ought to attach only to those who do so with groans and contractions of the heartstrings. For such to give is real generosity, and in this regard it is a subject of gratitude to me, as it must be to all improvident men, that with the lapse of years and the coming on of old age, no untoward circumstance of poverty has caused me to regret any foolish thing I may have done in disregard of matters relating to money; and about the possession of this last there exists much misunderstanding, I have always thought. For I must say, that for the life of me I have never been able to discover that money is more prized among the trading-people with whom my life has been thrown than among the better bred of other communities. In whomsoever wealth dwells, to that person the social peacock and the common barnyard fowl alike droop their crests in respectful and distant salutation. Love of property is innate in man, and to that love we may trace most of the blessings we have above those of common savages. About this, however, men differ; but all agree that those who have little defer of their own accord to those who have more, and that so long as men have vigor and the hope of life their greed of property never ceases to grow. In my own case, lack of skill in getting and holding has been said by those who professed to understand such matters to be clearly indicated by my temperament. This prediction may have been true, though it has always been a conviction with me that if I had devoted myself to making money with proper spirit I might have been fairly successful. In this, however, I may be vain without reason, but in order to acquire and keep, one's thoughts, it is clear, must dwell much upon such subjects. Out of this concentration comes the gift of acquiring and holding, the genius of the money-getter. Such occupation of one's life many esteem uneventful and void of interest, but I am assured that it is more intense than the habit of gambling or the love of women; indeed, a passion so great that it eats up all others, and in its intensity is worthy to rank with the fanaticism of martyrs, the ambition of soldiers, the fierce egotism of artists, or the dry nervous disorder of writers.