His mind was a well-furnished one. From boyhood he had cultivated the studious habit with which he was endowed in large degree, with the assiduity and perseverance of a Scotsman. He was thoroughness itself; whatever he attempted he did so well that he usually left nothing further to be desired. His brain was alert and active. He was quick-witted, and not devoid of humor, although there is always a touch of sternness in his persiflage. His letters fall into two classes. When he wrote under pressure of strong emotion or excitement, he expressed his personality with his pen as adequately as he did in his actions; his remarks were short, sharp, direct, logical, and in good taste; his style was vigorous and perspicuous. On the other hand, he frequently descended, especially when addressing women, into verbosity, and verbosity of that most intolerable species known as fine writing--witness his letter to Lady Selkirk. As a phrase maker many of his sentences ring with his spirit. "I do not wish to have command of any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm's way"; "I have not yet begun to fight"; "I have ever looked out for the honor of the American flag"; "I can never renounce the glorious title of a citizen of the United States," are some of his sayings which have passed into history, and might appropriately serve for inscriptions on the four sides of his monument, when a too tardy people pay him the honor of erecting one.[57] He spoke French well and wrote it better. He found no difficulty in making himself understood in France, and that language was used entirely in his Russian campaign. In an age when everybody scribbled verse he wrote poetry which is creditable to him. It has been remarked that it was much better verse than Nelson wrote. Like many other naval officers of that day, he played the flute and had a taste for music. He was undoubtedly a member of the Presbyterian Church by baptism in infancy, and although, so far as is known, he was not actively in communion with any religious organization during his life, he was in no sense an irreligious man. "They that go down to the sea in ships that do business in great waters," who see "the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep," are rarely ultimately indifferent to religion. They are superficially careless, perhaps, but they are neither skeptics nor atheists.[58] Nothing could be sweeter and more gentle than his letters to his sisters with their unequivocal recognition of the Power above which shapes our ends.