SAAC was a person of dignity. No one ever thought of calling him Ike. There was nothing in his appearance or bearing to indicate that he would resent such familiarity. He was mildness personified. Some people must be handled gingerly, like set traps, which a jar might let loose. Isaac inspired respect rather than caution.
Yet he was not an educated man. He spoke the French of the Canadian border better than most university men speak the Boulevard variety, an accomplishment acquired, like all his accomplishments, without aid from books, But he was an omnivorous reader of all printed matter, from the torn fragment of a newspaper to the borrowed volume bound in tree-calf. He never appeared to apply any knowledge derived from books, to practical ends. It is doubtful if he regarded books as a source of knowledge. They were amusement pure and simple, tales of another world than his.
No one knew where Isaac came from. He had no relatives and no sweetheart. He was not sullen or shy. He mingled with other people, but he did not mix. He was so even-tempered that he seemed to have no affections, no favorites. Perhaps this explains part of his fondness for novels. They were literally fiction for him, fairy tales of a world lying close at hand, but in which he had no more share than in the life of the dwellers of Mars.
Isaac always reminded me of a wild animal. If you wish to understand a wild animal you must catch it alone, when unconscious of being under observation. I never should have obtained the least clue to Isaac if I had not now and then caught him alone. When alone he soliloquized. That was one clue.
I remember once seeing him trying to unravel a tangle in a line. He did not know I was within hearing, and he swore audibly. I had never heard him swear.
"Isaac," I said, "I never knew you swore."
"I never swore at no man in my life," he replied.
It was true. He confined himself to things, and to these only when alone.
I subsequently discovered a peculiarity in his swearing. He personified things. He gave them souls. And when they misbehaved he consigned them to perdition without hesitation. Whether he restricted himself to this mild form of profanity—I never heard him refer to the Deity—under his breath, as it were, when he supposed he was not overheard, out of deference to a general sentiment against the use of strong language or because of scruples of his own, I cannot say. He certainly did not suggest the idea of a man who was holding himself in, who would some day break loose; but rather of a traveler on a road parallel to other roads, living his own life and going his own way—of a man looking over a fence at his neighbors, conversing with them when necessary, but making no excursions and encouraging no incursions.
Isaac always voted—no one knew how. This public act, like his private acts, possessed the same element of detachment that characterized all his contacts with the world—till Maggie Olliver appeared on the horizon.
Isaac never blamed Maggie. If he had ever heard that ungallant proverb , nothing in his conduct justified the supposition that he approved it. Till Maggie's appearance he had got along without any of the emotions associated with the myth of Eros. I never knew him to do a mean thing. His only criticism was the criticism of silence, and he never dealt in blame. If he did not blame Maggie, it was not so much because of chivalry as of philosophy—a rude natural philosophy which took things as they came—not fatalistic, for he never neglected precautions, but submissive, letting it rain when it rained, and damning it softly when it rained too hard.
Isaac was the best guide in the region. He was so far above rivalry that he provoked no jealousy. But he knew where the fox would run and what broke the twig on the dead limb. His dogs loved him. It was strange, because he never caressed them. He cared for their sore feet. They came to him to have the quills of the porcupine taken from their noses and mouths. They laid their heads on his knee and followed his heel as a shadow does, but I never saw him stroke one with his hand, or strike one, either. But it was clear that he was their god—I say god, rather than friend. A dog, as every one knows, is the only creature that has seen its god.