from this habit of coping with life just as he found it, he had an
inner nature of which few ever caught a glimpse,--a spirit and an
imagination deeply tinged with German ideality and speculation.
Often, when others slept, this man, who appeared so resolute,
hard, and uncompromising in the performance of duties, and who was
understood by but few, would read deeply in metaphysics and romantic
poetry. Therefore, the men and women who dwelt in his imagination
were not such as he had much to do with in real life. Indeed, he had
come to regard the world of reality and that of fancy as entirely
distinct, and to believe that only here and there, as a man or woman
possessed something like genius, would there be a marked deviation
from ordinary types. The slight differences, the little characteristic
meannesses or felicities that distinguished one from another, did
not count for very much in his estimation. When a knowledge of
such individual traits was essential to his plans, he mastered them
with singular keenness and quickness of comprehension. When such
knowledge was unnecessary, or as soon as it ceased to be of service,
he dismissed the extraneous personalities from his mind almost
as completely as if they had had no existence. Few men were less
embarrassed with acquaintances than he; yet he had an observant
eye and a retentive memory. When he wanted a man he rarely failed
to find the right one. In the selection and use of men he appeared
to act like an intelligent and silent force, rather than as a man
full of human interests and sympathies. He rarely spoke of himself,
even in the most casual way. Most of those with whom he mingled
knew merely that he was an agent of the government, and that he
kept his own counsel. His wife was to him a type of the average
American woman,--pretty, self-complacent, so nervous as to require
kind, even treatment, content with feminalities, and sufficiently
intelligent to talk well upon every-day affairs. In her society he