Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Story of Wellesley by Florence Converse
page 17 of 220 (07%)
III.

If we set them over against each other, the hearsay that besmirches
and the reminiscence that canonizes, we evoke a very human, living
personality: a man of keen intellect, of ardent and emotional
temperament, autocratic, fanatical, fastidious, and beauty-loving;
a loyal friend; an unpleasant enemy. "He saw black black and
white white, for him there was no gray." He was impatient of
mediocrity. "He could not suffer fools gladly."

No archangel this, but unquestionably a man of genius, consecrated
to the fulfillment of a great vision. It is no wonder that the
early graduates living in the very presence of his high purpose,
his pure intention, his spendthrift selflessness, remember these
things best when they recall old days. After all, these are the
things most worth remembering.

The best and most carefully balanced study of him which we have
is by Miss Charlotte Howard Conant of the class of '84, in an
address delivered by her in the College Chapel, February 18, 1906,
to commemorate Mr. Durant's birthday. Miss Conant's use of the
biographical material available, and her careful and restrained
estimate of Mr. Durant's character cannot be bettered, and it is
a temptation to incorporate her entire pamphlet in this chapter,
but we shall have to content ourselves with cogent extracts.

Henry Fowle Durant, or Henry Welles Smith as he was called in his
boyhood, was born February 20, 1822, in Hanover, New Hampshire.
His father, William Smith, "was a lawyer of limited means, but
versatile mind and genial disposition." His mother, Harriet Fowle
DigitalOcean Referral Badge