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

448 LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON. [chap, xxxvi.
unassuming, but always manly. He was frank and social in
spirit. When a humble workman, he had carefully preserved
his sense of self-respect. His companions looked up to him,
and his example was worth even more to many of them than
books or schools. His devoted love of knowledge made his
poverty respectable, and adorned his humble calling. When he
rose to a more elevated station, and associated with men of the
highest position and influence in Britain, he took his place
amongst them with perfect self-possession. They wondered at
the quiet ease and simple dignity of his deportment ; and men
in the best ranks of life have said of him that " He was one of
Nature's gentlemen.''
If he was occasionally impatient of the opposition of profes-
sional brethren, it is scarcely to be wondered at when we look
at the simple earnestness of his character, and consider that his
sole aim was the establishment of his own well-founded convic-
tions. No wonder that he should have been intolerant of that
professional gladiatorship against which his life had been one
prolonged struggle. Nor could he forget that the engineering
class had been arrayed against him during his arduous battle
for the Locomotive, and that, but for his own pluck and persist-
ency, they would have strangled it in its cradle.
Mr. Stephenson's close observation of nature provided him
with a fulness of information on many subjects, which often ap-
peared surprising to those who had devoted to them a special
study. In passing through a country, nothing escaped his atten-
tion—the trees, the crops, the birds, the farmer's stock ;—in short,
everything in nature afforded him an opportunity for making
some striking observation, or propounding some ingenious theory.
This rendered him a highly instructive and amusing companion
at all times. On one occasion the accuracy of his knowledge of
birds came out in a curious way at a convivial meeting of railway
men in London. The engineers and railway directors
present knew each other as railway men and nothing more.
The talk had been all of railways and railway politics. Mr.
Stephenson was a great talker on these subjects, and was gener-
ally allowed, from the interest of his conversation and the
extent of his experience, to take the lead. At length, one of the