There is so much to tell about our father that I hardly know where to begin. First, you must know something of his appearance. He was tall and very erect, with the carriage and walk of a soldier. His hair was black, with silver threads in it; his eyes were of the deepest and brightest blue I ever saw. They were eyes full of light: to us it was the soft, beaming light of love and tenderness, but sometimes to others it was the flash of a sword. He was very handsome; in his youth he had been thought one of the handsomest men of his day. It was a gallant time, this youth of our father. When hardly more than a lad, he went out to help the brave Greeks who were fighting to free their country from the cruel yoke of the Turks. At an age when most young men were thinking how they could make money, and how they could best advance themselves in the world, our father thought only how he could do most good, be of most help to others. So he went out to Greece, and fought in many a battle beside the brave mountaineers. Dressed like them in the “snowy chemise and the shaggy capote,” he shared their toils and their hardships; slept, rolled in his cloak, under the open stars, or sat over the camp-fire, roasting wasps strung on a stick like dried cherries. The old Greek chieftains called him “the beautiful youth,” and loved him. Once he saved the life of a wounded Greek, at the risk of his own, as you shall read by and by in Whittier’s beautiful words; and the rescued man followed him afterward like a dog, not wishing to lose sight of him for an hour, and would even sleep at his feet at night. Our father’s letters and journals give vivid pictures of the wild life among the rugged Greek mountains. Now he describes his [Illustration: DR. SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE.] lodging in a village, which he has reached late at night, in a pouring rain:-- “Squatted down upon a sort of straw pillow placed on the ground, I enjoy all the luxury of a Grecian hut; which in point of elegance, ease, and comfort, although not equal to the meanest of our negro huts, is nevertheless somewhat superior to the naked rock. We have two apartments, but no partitions between them, the different rooms being constituted by the inequality of the ground,--we living up the hill, while the servants and horses live down in the lower part; and the smoke of our fires, rising to the roof and seeking in vain for some hole to escape, comes back again to me.”