whose like you had never met before--a man who
spoke in a low, gentle voice, and yet, with an authority
that compelled attention; enthusiastic over the
things he loved, silent over those that pained him;
a scholar of wide learning, yet skilled in the use of
tools that obeyed him as readily as nimble fingers do
a hand; a philosopher eminently sane on most of the
accepted theories of the day and yet equally insistent
in his support of many of the supposed sophistries and
so-called "fanaticisms of the hour"; an old-time aristocrat
holding fast to the class distinctions of his ancestors
and yet glorying in the dignity of personal
labor; a patriot loyal to the traditions of his State
and yet so opposed to the bondage of men and women
that he had freed his own slaves the day his father's
will was read; a cavalier reverencing a woman as
sweetheart, wife, and mother, and yet longing for the
time to come when she, too, could make a career, then
denied her, coequal in its dignity with that of the man
beside her.

A composite personality of strange contradictions;
of pronounced accomplishments and yet of equally
pronounced failures. And yet, withal, a man so gracious
in speech, so courtly in bearing, so helpful in
counsel, so rational, human, and lovable, that agree
with him or not, as you pleased, his vision would have
lingered with you for days.

When night came the inventor would rake the coals