entric character. But
there are other parts of Turner's conduct of which you have never heard;
and which, if truly reported, would set his niggardliness in a very
different light. Every person from whom Turner exacted a due shilling,
proclaimed the exaction far and wide; but the persons to whom Turner
gave hundreds of pounds were prevented, by their "delicacy," from
reporting the kindness of their benefactor. I may, however, perhaps, be
permitted to acquaint you with one circumstance of this nature,
creditable alike to both parties concerned.

At the death of a poor drawing master, Mr. Wells,[33] whom Turner had
long known, he was deeply affected, and lent money to the widow until a
large sum had accumulated. She was both honest and grateful, and after a
long period was happy enough to be able to return to her benefactor the
whole sum she had received from him. She waited on him with it; but
Turner kept his hands in his pockets. "Keep it," he said, "and send your
children to school, and to church." He said this in bitterness; he had
himself been sent to neither.

[Footnote 33: Not the Mr. Wells who taught drawing at Addiscombe. It
appears that Turner knew two persons of the same name, and in the same
profession. I am not permitted to name my authority for the anecdote;
various egotistic "delicacies," even in this case, preventing useful
truth from being clearly assured to the public.]

106. "Well, but," you will answer to me, "we have heard Turner all our
lives stigmatized as brutal, and uncharitable, and selfish, and miserly.
How are we to understand these opposing statements?"

Easily. I have told you truly what Turner was. You have often heard what
to most people he appeared to be. Imagine what it was for a man to live
seventy years in this hard world, with the kindest heart, and the
noblest intellect of his time, and never to meet with a single word or
ray of sympathy, until he felt himself sinking into the grave. From the
time he knew his true greatness all the world was turned against him: he
held his own; but it could not be without roughness of bearing, and
hardening of the temper, if not of the heart. No one understood him, no
one trusted him, and every one cried out against him. Imagine, any of
you, the effect upon your own minds, if every voice that you heard from
the human beings around you were raised, year after year, through all
your lives, only in condemnation of your efforts, and denial of your
succ