It was, therefore, needful that we should be our own harshest judges, and that we should be sure that we knew thoroughly every subject that we taught.

He saved me from the superficiality that my "fatal facility" of speech might so easily have induced; and when I began to taste the intoxication of easily won applause, his criticism of weak points, his challenge of weak arguments, his trained judgment, were of priceless service to me, and what of value there is in my work is very largely due to his influence, which at once stimulated and restrained.
One very charming characteristic of his was his extreme courtesy in private life, especially to women.

This outward polish, which sat so gracefully on his massive frame and stately presence, was foreign rather than English--for the English, as a rule, save such as go to Court, are a singularly unpolished people--and it gave his manner a peculiar charm.

I asked him once where he had learned his gracious fashions that were so un-English--he would stand with uplifted hat as he asked a question of a maidservant, or handed a woman into a carriage--and he answered, with a half-smile, half-scoff, that it was only in England he was an outcast from society.

In France, in Spain, in Italy, he was always welcomed among men and women of the highest social rank, and he supposed that he had unconsciously caught the foreign tricks of manner.