So
long as a man persisted in a wrong attitude before God or man, there
was no day so laborious or exhausting, no night so long or drowsy, but
Theodore Parker's unsleeping memory stood on guard full-armed, ready
to do battle at a moment's warning. This is generally known; but what
may not be known so widely is, that, the moment the adversary lowered
his spear, were it for only an inch or an instant, that moment
Theodore Parker's weapons were down and his arms open. Make but the
slightest concession, give him but the least excuse to love you, and
never was there seen such promptness in forgiving. His friends found
it sometimes harder to justify his mildness than his severity. I
confess that I, with others, have often felt inclined to criticize a
certain caustic tone of his, in private talk, when the name of an
offender was alluded to; but I have also felt almost indignant at his
lenient good-nature to that very person, let him once show the
smallest symptom of contrition, or seek, even in the clumsiest way, or
for the most selfish purpose, to disarm his generous antagonist. His
forgiveness in such cases was more exuberant than his wrath had ever
been.
It is inevitable, in describing him, to characterize his life first by
its quantity. He belonged to the true race of the giants of learning;
he took in knowledge at every pore, and his desires were insatiable.
Not, perhaps, precocious in boyhood,--for it is not precocity to begin
Latin at ten and Greek at eleven, to enter the Freshman class at
twenty and the professional school at twenty-three,--he was equalled
by few students in the tremendous rate at which he pursued every
study, when once begun.
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