ublishers had made him an allowance, which, if he
had worked like other men, would have amounted to eight dollars a
day. But Percival would let nothing go out of his hands imperfect; a
typographical error, even, I have heard him say, sometimes depressed
him like actual illness. He translated and revised so carefully, he
corrected so many errors and added so many footnotes, that his industry
actually devoured its own wages; and his eight dollars gradually
diminished to a diurnal fifty cents.

Percival made no merely ceremonial calls, few friendly visits, and
attended no parties. If he dropped in upon a family of his acquaintance,
he rarely addressed himself to a lady. Otherwise there was nothing
peculiar in his deportment; for, if silent, he was not embarrassed,--and
if he talked, it was without any appearance of self-consciousness.

Judging from his isolated habits, some persons supposed him
misanthropic. Let me give one instance of his good-nature. One of the
elder professors of Yale had fallen into a temporary misappreciation
with the students, who received his instructions, to say the least, with
an ill-concealed indifference. They whispered during his lectures,
and in other ways rendered themselves strenuously disagreeable to the
sensitive nerves of the professor. Indignant at such behavior toward
a worthy and learned man, who had been his own instructor, Percival
proposed a plan for stopping the annoyance. It was, that a number of old
graduates, professors, and others, himself being one, should attend
the lectures, listen to them with the respect they merited, and so,
if possible, bring the students to a sense of propriety and of the
advantages they were neglecting.

No, Percival was not a misanthrope. During an acquaintance of
twenty-five years, I never knew him do an act or utter a word which
could countenance this opinion. He indulged in no bitter remarks,
cherished no hatred of individuals, affected no scorn of his race; on
the contrary, he held large views concerning the noble destinies of
mankind, and expressed deep interest in its advancement toward greater
intelligence and virtue. The local affections he certainly had, for he
was gratified at the prosperity of his fellow-townsmen, proud of his
native State, and took a pleasure in defending her name from unjust
aspersions. Patriotic, too,--none more so,--he rejoiced in the welfare
of the whole country, knew its history thoroughly, and bestowed on
its mili