st. Seeming
to delight in destruction, it tears down or eats away the checks that
are put upon it. Only a mind never discouraged, a mind capable of
discovering and comprehending the laws that after all underlie the
apparently blind and brutal jests of this untiring giant, can, by the
use of those very laws, tame it. And such a mind Eads had. "That
everlasting brain of yours will wear out three bodies," said one
friend.

Though indeed his body was strong, with iron muscles and a fierce
nervous energy, yet it was not a big body, and his health was weak.
Again and again he worked beyond his strength, and only on the absolute
order of his doctors would he go away from his work and rest. But he
could not entirely rest. His brain would work. In his health tours to
Europe he was always open to new ideas, always studying new methods to
carry back to his task. "Your recreation," some one wrote him, "is
Monitor discussions with Captain Ericsson." Another recreation was
chess. Had he not elected to be the leading engineer of his day, he
might have been the chess champion. This game, never one for the
slothful and unthinking, he made even more exacting than usual. He
would play several games at the same time; or, without seeing the board
which his opponent used, he would carry the game in his head. Though it
was his nature not to like to be beaten, yet he was as kindly as he was
set in his purpose; and it was also his nature to take defeat
gracefully: defeat seldom came. "Never let even a pawn be taken," he
gave me, a small boy, as a rule for the game. Even in little things he
liked thoroughness,--a capacity for painstaking which is, I think,
characteristic of the "thoroughbred."

His appearance showed his traits. Not tall, and rather slight, he was
always dignified. His wide and thin-lipped mouth shut so emphatically
that it made plain his intention to do, in spite of all, what he
believed could and should be done. Some one said that it was a hundred
horse-power mouth. It admitted no trifling. When it spoke seriously, it
spoke finally. But his eyes, with their merry twinkle, showed that he
could also speak humorously. He was indeed a famous story-teller, fond
of all sorts of riddles and jests, and remembering all of them he
heard. He used often to point his arguments with an anecdote, always a
fresh one. Believing with Lamb that a man should enjoy his own stories,
he would laugh at his in a most infectious way, till he was red i