ts. The knowledge of them was in fact one of
the things he lived by. To judge of abstract philosophy, of sculpture
and painting, of certain lines of literary art, he admitted, was not of
his competency. But within the sphere where he thought he had a right
to judge, he parted his likes from his dislikes and preserved his
preferences with a pathetic steadfastness. He was faithful in age to
the lights that lit his youth, and obeyed at eve the voice obeyed at
prime, with a consistency most unusual. Elsewhere the opinions of
others might perplex him, but he laughed and let them live. Within his
own appropriated sphere he was too scrupulous a lover of the truth not
to essay to correct them, when he thought them erroneous. A certain
appearance comes in here of a self-contradictory character, for Mr.
Boott was primarily modest and sensitive, and all his interests and
pre-occupations were with life's refinements and delicacies. Yet one's
mind always pictured him as a rugged sort of person, opposing
successful resistance to all influences that might seek to change his
habits either of feeling or of action. His admirable health, his sober
life, his regular walk twice a day, whatever might be the weather, his
invariable evenness of mood and opinion, so that, when you once knew
his range, he never disappointed you--all this was at variance with
popular notions of the artistic temperament. He was indeed, a man of
reason, no romancer, sentimentalist or dreamer, in spite of the fact
that his main interests were with the muses. He was exact and
accurate; affectionate, indeed, and sociable, but neither gregarious
nor demonstrative; and such words as "honest," "sturdy," "faithful,"
are the adjectives first to rise when one thinks of him. A friend said
to me soon after his death: "I seem still to see Mr. Boott, with his
two feet planted on the ground, and his cane in front of him, making of
himself a sort of tripod of honesty and veracity."

Old age changes men in different ways. Some it softens; some it
hardens; some it degenerates; some it alters. Our old friend Boott was
identical in spiritual essence all his life, and the effect of his
growing old was not to alter, but only to make the same man mellower,
more tolerant, more lovable. Sadder he was, I think, for his life had
grown pretty lonely; but he was a stoic and he never complained either
of losses or of years, and that contagious laugh of his at any and
every prete