Sometimes, when I came home from Washington after a period
of hard work, if I happened to find Nelson in the cars when
I went to Boston, it was almost painful to spend an hour with
him, although his conversation was very profound and interesting.
But it was like attempting to take up and solve a difficult
problem in geometry. I was tired, and wanted to be humming
a negro melody to myself. He was a man of absolute integrity,
not caring whether he pleased or displeased anybody. He had
a good deal of literary knowledge, was specially fond of Emerson,
and knew him very thoroughly, both prose and verse. He had
a good deal of wit, one of the brightest examples of which
I will not undertake to quote here. He was a civil engineer
in his youth, and was always valuable in complicated questions
of boundary, or cases like our sewer and water cases, which
require the application of practical mathematics. He was
a friendly and placable person so far as he was concerned
himself, but resented, with great indignation, any unkindness
toward any of his friends or household. His friend and associate,
Judge Webb, after his death spoke with great beauty and pathos
of Nelson's love of nature and of his old county home:
"When, in later years, he revisited the scenes of his childhood,
he made no effort to conceal his affection for them; as he
wandered among the mountains and along the valleys, so dearly
remembered, his eye would grow bright, his face beam with
pleasure, and his voice sound with the tone of deep sensibility.
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