How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
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The Wan Features Which Had Shocked Me At First Meeting, The Heavy
Step Which Told Of Age And Hard Travel, The Grey Beard And Bowed
Shoulders, Belied The Man.
Underneath that well-worn exterior
lay an endless fund of high spirits and inexhaustible humour;
that rugged frame of
His enclosed a young and most exuberant soul.
Every day I heard innumerable jokes and pleasant anecdotes;
interesting hunting stories, in which his friends Oswell, Webb,
Vardon, and Gorden Cumming were almost always the chief actors.
I was not sure, at first, but this joviality, humour, and
abundant animal spirits were the result of a joyous hysteria;
but as I found they continued while I was with him, I am obliged
to think them natural.
Another thing which specially attracted my attention was his
wonderfully retentive memory. If we remember the many years he
has spent in Africa, deprived of books, we may well think it an
uncommon memory that can recite whole poems from Byron, Burns,
Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier, and Lowell. The reason of this
may be found, perhaps, in the fact, that he has lived all his
life almost, we may say, within himself. Zimmerman, a great
student of human nature, says on this subject "The unencumbered
mind recalls all that it has read, all that pleased the eye,
and delighted the ear; and reflecting on every idea which
either observation, or experience, or discourse has produced,
gains new information by every reflection. The intellect
contemplates all the former scenes of life; views by
anticipation those that are yet to come; and blends all ideas
of past and future in the actual enjoyment of the present
moment." He has lived in a world which revolved inwardly,
out of which he seldom awoke except to attend to the immediate
practical necessities of himself and people; then relapsed again
into the same happy inner world, which he must have peopled with
his own friends, relations, acquaintances, familiar readings,
ideas, and associations; so that wherever he might be, or by
whatsoever he was surrounded, his own world always possessed
more attractions to his cultured mind than were yielded by
external circumstances.
The study of Dr. Livingstone would not be complete if we did not
take the religious side of his character into consideration. His
religion is not of the theoretical kind, but it is a constant,
earnest, sincere practice. It is neither demonstrative nor loud,
but manifests itself in a quiet, practical way, and is always at
work. It is not aggressive, which sometimes is troublesome, if
not impertinent. In him, religion exhibits its loveliest features;
it governs his conduct not only towards his servants, but towards
the natives, the bigoted Mohammedans, and all who come in contact
with him. Without it, Livingstone, with his ardent temperament,
his enthusiasm, his high spirit and courage, must have become
uncompanionable, and a hard master. Religion has tamed him, and
made him a Christian gentleman: the crude and wilful have been
refined and subdued; religion has made him the most companionable
of men and indulgent of masters - a man whose society is pleasurable.
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