Percival was indifferent and even disinclined to female society. There is a common story that he had conceived an aversion to the whole sex in consequence of a youthful disappointment in love. I know nothing concerning this alleged chagrin, but I am confident that he cherished no such antipathy. He never, in my hearing, said a hard thing of any woman, or of the sex; and I remember distinctly the flattering and even poetic appreciation with which he spoke of individual ladies. Of one who has since become a distinguished authoress of the South, he said, that "her conversation had as great an intellectual charm for him as that of any scholar among his male acquaintances." Of a lady still resident in New Haven, he observed, that "there was a mysterious beauty in her thoughtful face and dark eyes which reminded him of a deep and limpid forest-fountain." But although he did not hate women, he certainly was disinclined to their society,--an oddity, I beg leave to say, in any man, and a most surprising eccentricity in a poet. Constitutional timidity may have founded this habit during youth; for, as I have already observed, his modesty was sensitive and almost morbid. Then came his multitudinous studies, which absorbed him utterly, and in which, unfortunately for Percival, if not for the ladies, these last took so little interest that conversation was not mutually desirable. A remark he made to a scientific friend, who had just been married, will, perhaps, throw some light on the subject. "How is this?" said he; "I thought you were wedded to science." This was all the felicitation he had to offer; and without asking for the bride, he plunged into the discussion which was the object of the visit.