The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

CHAP. XXVII.] HIS BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE. 321
the Dissenting portion of the colliers and their families,—an
example of benevolent liberality which was not without its salu-
tary influence on the neighbouring employers.
When at home, in the intervals of his now extensive business
as a railway engineer, Mr. Stephenson delighted to snatch an
occasional hour to indulge his love of rural life. When he
could, he went bird-nesting in spring, and nutting in autumn
occasionally he did a little gardening, or took a rural ride on his
favourite " Bobby," now growing old.* His uniform kindness
and good temper, and his communicative intelligent disposition,
made him a great favourite with the neighbouring farmers, to
whom he would volunteer much valuable advice on agricultural
operations, drainage, ploughing, and labour-saving processes.
Shortly after Mr. Stephenson had settled down at Alton
Grange, railway projects of great magnitude began to spring up
all over England, and he was often called away for the purpose
of making surveys, and conferring with committees of directors
as to their parliamentary procedure. For several years he spent
most of his time in travelling about on such business, besides
frequently going down to Lancashire to watch over the working
of the Liverpool and Manchester line. His correspondence in-
creased so much, that he found it necessary to engage a private
secretary, who accompanied him on his journeys. He was him-
self exceedingly averse to writing letters. The comparatively
advanced age at which he learnt the art of writing, and the nature
of his duties whUe engaged at the Killingworth colliery, pre-
cluded that facility in correspondence which only constant prac-
tice can give. He possessed, however, great facility in dictation,
and was very particular and precise as to the terms in which his
letters must be written. He also had the power of labouring
continuously at dictation ; the gentleman who acted as his secre-
tary, in the year 1835, stating that during his busy season he
one day dictated not fewer than thirty-seven letters, several of
them embodying the results of much close thinking and calcula-
tion. On another occasion, he dictated reports and letters for
* " Bobby " was about twenty years old when he died, in 1845. During the
last few years of his life he was a pensioner, living in clover and doing no
work.
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