An excellent library of their own supplied them with the essentials of culture, and one or two periodicals kept them acquainted with all that was worth knowing in the activity of the day.

They belonged to the very small class of persons who still read, who have mind and leisure to find companionship in books.

Their knowledge of languages passed the common; in earlier years they had travelled, and their reminiscences fostered the liberality which was the natural tone of their minds.

To converse familiarly with them was to discover their grasp of historical principles, their insight into philosophic systems, their large apprehension of world-problems.

At the same time, they nurtured jealously their intellectual preferences, differing on such points from each other as they did from the common world.