6

G6

write were to be frankly told at the outset what manner of man I
am. Let that consideration, dubious though it be, outweigh every
other.

My father was known as the leading American mathematician
of his day; and as a child I had ample opportunities
for a child's observation for of a great many
distinguished persons of various kinds, and saw remarkably
few commonplace people. It must have been in 1851,
when I should have been twelve years old, that I remember