In diet, Percival was the most abstemious person I ever knew. His health was uniformly good,--the specimens of a geologist, when he collects them himself, being as favorable to digestion and appetite as the pebbles to a chicken; yet, I am persuaded, my companion in no case violated the golden rule of leaving the table unsated. No matter how long had been his fast, he showed no impatience of hunger, made no remark upon the excellence of any dish, found fault with nothing, or, at most, only seemed to miss drinkable coffee and good bread, articles seldom to be met with in the country. He ate slowly, selecting his food with the discrimination which ought to belong to a chemist or physiologist, and then thought no more about it. Alcoholic drinks he never tasted, except an occasional glass of wine, to which his attention perhaps had been called on account of its age or superior excellence. Even then it was not the flavor which interested him, so much as the history, geographical and other. Peculiar as he was in his own habits of diet, he offered no strictures upon the practice of others, however different, unless it ran into hurtful excesses. The maxim of Epictetus in the "Enchiridion," "Never preach how others ought to eat, but eat you as becomes you," seemed to be his rule. Indeed, Percival was one of those rare men who withhold alike censure and praise respecting the minor matters of life. Not that he was without opinions on such subjects; but, to obtain them, one was forced to question him. On the whole, I do not think it would be going too far to apply to him the above-named moralist's description of the wise man:--"He reproves nobody, praises nobody, blames nobody, nor even speaks of himself; if any one praises him, in his own mind he contemns the flatterer; if any one reproves him, he looks with care that he be not unsettled in the state of tranquillity that he has entered into. All his desires depend on things within his power; he transfers all his aversions to those things which Nature commands us to avoid. His appetites are always moderate. He is indifferent whether he be thought foolish or ignorant. He observes himself with the nicety of an enemy or a spy, and looks on his own wishes as betrayers."