At
that time my father was accounted a man prone to mutiny against "the
powers that be," although his political opinions belonged to a class
which would now be regarded as too moderate for popular liberalism.
He has been censured for literary affectation and for personal
improvidence, but only by those who do not understand the real
elements of his character. The leading ideas of his mind were,
first, earnest duty to his country at any cost to himself; next, the
sacrifice of any ordinary consideration to personal affection and
friendship; and lastly, the cultivation of "the ideal," especially as
it is developed in imaginative literature. His life was passed in an
absolute devotion to these three principles. A one-sided frankness has
blazoned to the world the sacrifices which he accepted from friends,
but has whispered nothing of the more than commensurate sacrifices
made on his side; and the simplicity that rendered him the creature of
the library in which he lived entered into the expression of all his
thoughts and feelings.
[Footnote A: Leigh Hunt.]
Although I can remember some of the most eminent men who visited us
in prison, Shelley I cannot; but I can well recall my father's
description of the young stranger who came to him breathing the
classic thoughts of college, ardent with aspirations for the
emancipation of man from intellectual slavery, and endowed by Nature
with an aspect truly "angelic.
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