A moment later, when Miss Hobby returned, he was serene and happy again.  He was usually gentle during the dictations, and patient with those around him—­remarkably so, I thought, as a rule.  But there were moments that involved risk.  He had requested me to interrupt his dictation at any time that I found him repeating or contradicting himself, or misstating some fact known to me.  At first I hesitated to do this, and cautiously mentioned the matter when he had finished.  Then he was likely to say: 

“Why didn’t you stop me?  Why did you let me go on making a jackass of myself when you could have saved me?”

So then I used to take the risk of getting struck by lightning, and nearly always stopped him at the time.  But if it happened that I upset his thought the thunderbolt was apt to fly.  He would say: 

“Now you’ve knocked everything out of my head.”

Then, of course, I would apologize and say I was sorry, which would rectify matters, though half an hour later it might happen again.  I became lightning-proof at last; also I learned better to select the psychological moment for the correction.

There was a humorous complexion to the dictations which perhaps I have not conveyed to the reader at all; humor was his natural breath and life, and was not wholly absent in his most somber intervals.

But poetry was there as well.  His presence was full of it:  the grandeur of his figure; the grace of his movement; the music of his measured speech.  Sometimes there were long pauses when he was wandering in distant valleys of thought and did not speak at all.  At such times he had a habit of folding and refolding the sleeve of his dressing-gown around his wrist, regarding it intently, as it seemed.  His hands were so fair and shapely; the palms and finger-tips as pink as those of a child.  Then when he spoke he was likely to fling back his great, white mane, his eyes half closed yet showing a gleam of fire between the lids, his clenched fist lifted, or his index-finger pointing, to give force and meaning to his words.  I cannot recall the picture too often, or remind myself too frequently how precious it was to be there, and to see him and to hear him.  I do not know why I have not said before that he smoked continually during these dictations—­probably as an aid to thought —­though he smoked at most other times, for that matter.  His cigars were of that delicious fragrance which characterizes domestic tobacco; but I had learned early to take refuge in another brand when he offered me one.  They were black and strong and inexpensive, and it was only his early training in the printing-office and on the river that had seasoned him to tobacco of that temper.  Rich, admiring friends used to send him quantities of expensive imported cigars; but he seldom touched them, and they crumbled away or were smoked by visitors.  Once, to a minister who proposed to send him something very special, he wrote: