abundantly his father's too hasty conclusion in his case. He became
eminent as an entomologist; George followed the example of his father
on educational lines. Horace, who died comparatively early, was an
enthusiastic naturalist, who received the unstinted praise and
confidence of the great Agassiz. My uncle Horace, as I remember him,
was a very tall man, of somewhat meagre build, a chronic sufferer from
headaches and dyspepsia. His hair was sandy, straight, rather long,
and very thick; it hung down uncompromisingly round his head. His face
was a long square, with a mouth and chin large and immitigably firm.
His eyes were reinforced by a glistening pair of gold-bowed
spectacles. He always wore a long-skirted black coat. His aspect was a
little intimidating to small people; but there were lovely qualities
in his nature, his character was touchingly noble and generous, and
the world knows the worth of his intellect. He was anxious, exacting,
and dogmatic, and was not always able to concede that persons who
differed from him in opinion could be morally normal. This was
especially noticeable when the topic of abolition happened to come up
for discussion; Horace Mann was ready to out-Garrison Garrison; he
thought Uncle Tom's Cabin a somewhat milk-and-water tract. He was
convinced that Tophet was the future home of all slave-holders, and
really too good for them, and he practically worshipped the negro. Had
he occupied a seat in Congress at that juncture, it is likely that the
civil war might have been started a decade sooner than it was. My
father and mother were much more moderate in their view of the
situation, and my mother used to say that if slavery was really so
evil and demoralizing a thing as the abolitionists asserted, it was
singular that they should canonize all the subjects of the
institution. But, as a rule, all controversy with the indignant zeal
of our relative was avoided; in his eyes any approach to a
philosophical attitude on the burning question was a crime. Nor were