He was meditative, as all those are
who care that the world is full of sorrow and sin, but cheerful, as
those are who have the character and genius to see the finite beauty
and perfection in the world, which are sent to the true-hearted as
indications of heaven. He could be full of cheer, and at the same
time never lose the solemnity of a perception of the Infinite,--that
familiar fact which we, so many of us, have ceased to fear, but which
the greatest men so remember and reverence. He never became wholly
merged in fun, however gay the games in which he joined with us
children; just as a man of refinement who has been in war never quite
throws aside the dignity of the sorrow which he has seen. He might
seem, at a superficial glance, to be the merriest of us all, but on
second thoughts he was not. Of course, there were times when it was
very evident to me that my father was as comfortable and happy as he
cared to be. When he stood upon the hearth-rug, before the snapping,
blushing English fire (always poked into a blaze towards evening, as
he was about to enter the parlor),--when he stood there with his hands
clasped behind him, swaying from side to side in a way peculiar to
him, and which recalled the many sea-swayed ancestors of his who had
kept their feet on rolling decks, then he was a picture of benevolent
pleasure. Perhaps, for this moment, the soldier from the battlefields
of the soul ceased to remember scenes of cruelty and agony. He swayed
from side to side, and raised himself on his toes, and creaked his
slippered heels jocosely, and smiled upon me, and lost himself in
agreeable musings.
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