oot on; sat in it to write, half the day; walked in
it through the snow, the other half; forced the boot on again next
morning; sat and walked again; and being accustomed to all sorts of
changes in my feet, took no heed. At length, going out as usual, I fell
lame on the walk, and had to limp home dead lame, through the snow, for
the last three miles--to the remarkable terror, by-the-bye, of the two
big dogs." The dogs were Turk and Linda. Boisterous companions as they
always were, the sudden change in him brought them to a stand-still; and
for the rest of the journey they crept by the side of their master as
slowly as he did, never turning from him. He was greatly moved by the
circumstance, and often referred to it. Turk's look upward to his face
was one of sympathy as well as fear, he said; but Linda was wholly
struck down.

The saying in his letter to his youngest son that he was to do to others
what he would that they should do to him, without being discouraged if
they did not do it; and his saying to the Birmingham people that they
were to attend to self-improvement not because it led to fortune, but
because it was right; express a principle that at all times guided
himself. Capable of strong attachments, he was not what is called an
effusive man; but he had no half-heartedness in any of his likings. The
one thing entirely hateful to him, was indifference. "I give my heart to
very few people; but I would sooner love the most implacable man in the
world than a careless one, who, if my place were empty to-morrow, would
rub on and never miss me." There was nothing he more repeatedly told his
children than that they were not to let indifference in others appear to
justify it in themselves. "All kind things," he wrote, "must be done on
their own account, and for their own sake, and without the least
reference to any gratitude." Again he laid it down, while he was making
some exertion for the sake of a dead friend that did not seem likely to
win proper appreciation from those it was to serve. "As to gratitude
from the family--as I have often remarked to you, one does a generous
thing because it is right and pleasant, and not for any response it is
to awaken in others." The rule in another form frequently appears in his
letters; and it was enforced in many ways upon all who were dear to him.
It is worth while to add his comment on a regret of a member of his
family at an act of self-devotion supposed to have been thrown awa