a Unitarian degree of religious quality. He was always apostolic in
his manner, and his utterances were ex cathedra, and yet his whole
long life was a story of changing views on the subjects he had chosen
to be the theme of his career.

He was the great opponent of orthodoxy in his day, yet he led his
followers to no goal more explicit than might be surmised from a study
of Kant and Hegel. He was, however, sincere in his devotion to the
will-o'-the-wisp that he conceived to be the truth, and he was
courageous enough to admit that he never satisfied himself. There was
chilly and austere attraction about the man; he was so elevated and
superior that one could hardly help believing that he must know
something of value, and this illusion was the easier because he did
know so much in the way of scholarly learning. My father felt respect
for his character, but was bored by his metaphysics--a form of
intellectual athletics which he had exhausted while still a young man.
James's sister Harriet was also of the company. She was so deaf as to
be obliged to use an ear-trumpet, and she was as positive in her views
(which had become avowedly atheistic) as her brother, and whenever any
one began to utter anything with which she disagreed, she silenced him
by the simple expedient of dropping the ear-trumpet. In herself, she
was an agreeable old lady; but she seldom let her opinions rest long
enough for one to get at her on the merely human side, and she
cultivated a retired life, partly on account of her deafness, partly
because her opinions made society shy of her, and partly because she
did not think society worth her time and attention. She was a good
woman, with a mind of exceptional caliber, but the world admired more
than it desired her.

As a relief from the consideration of these exalted personages, I am