Anything out of the way in the shape of trouble seemed to choose the
Carson household for experimental purposes. He was the medium by which
new varieties of irritations were introduced to an ungrateful world, but
such was his nature that, given the companionship of Herbert Spencer and
a cigar, he could be absolutely counted on not to murmur.
This disposition to accept the trials and tribulations which came upon
him without a passionate outburst was not by any means due to
amiability. Carson was of too strong a character to be continually
amiable. He merely exercised his philosophy in meeting trouble. He
boiled within, but presented a calm, unruffled front to the world,
simply because to do otherwise would involve an expenditure of nervous
force which he did not consider to be worth while.
I can never forget the sense of admiring regard which I experienced
when in Genoa, while he and I were about to enter our banker's together,
he slipped upon a bit of banana peeling, bruising his knee and
destroying his trouser leg. I should have indulged in profane allusions
to the person who had thoughtlessly thrown the peeling upon the ground
if by some mischance the accident had happened to me. Carson, however,
did nothing of the sort, but treated me to a forcible abstract
consideration of the unthinking habits of the masses.
The unknown individual who was responsible for the accident did not
enter into the question; no one was consigned to everlasting torture in
the deepest depths of purgatory; a calm, dispassionate presentation of
an abstraction was all that greeted my ears.
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