Gracious is the only word which I can apply to his
manner to those around him, and it had a fascination over them which
I could perfectly understand, and I could easily comprehend that
he should have a surrounding of devotees. The serene, absolute
self-confidence he evidently felt was of a nature to inspire a
corresponding confidence in his followers. It was an interesting
display of the power of a magnetic nature, and gave me a higher idea
of the man than all his writings had given or could give. For his
intellectual powers and their printed results I never had a high
opinion, but his was one of the most interesting and remarkable
personalities I ever encountered.
As Russie continued to hold his own against his terrible disease, Mr.
Marshall thought that the operation of resecting the leg at the hip
might save his life, and though such a maimed existence as his would
then be was but a doubtful boon, the boy eagerly caught at the chance
of life; and, to recruit strength for the operation, I decided to take
him, by Marshall's advice, to America, and give him a summer in the
woods, camping out. I took him to the Maine woods instead of my old
haunts of the Adirondacks, because the rail served to the verge of
the wilderness, and we had, on Moosehead Lake, the resource of a good
hotel to take refuge in if matters went ill. They did go ill, and I
found that life was too low in him to give the woodland air and the
influence of the pine-trees power to help him.
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