His origin and ancestry were shrouded in mystery; even his age was a
matter of pure conjecture. Although he was of the Maltese race, I
have reason to suppose that he was American by birth as he certainly
was in sympathy. Calvin was given to me eight years ago by Mrs.
Stowe, but she knew nothing of his age or origin. He walked into her
house one day out of the great unknown and became at once at home, as
if he had been always a friend of the family. He appeared to have
artistic and literary tastes, and it was as if he had inquired at the
door if that was the residence of the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
and, upon being assured that it was, bad decided to dwell there.
This is, of course, fanciful, for his antecedents were wholly
unknown, but in his time he could hardly have been in any household
where he would not have heard "Uncle Tom's Cabin" talked about. When
he came to Mrs. Stowe, he was as large as he ever was, and
apparently as old as he ever became. Yet there was in him no
appearance of age; he was in the happy maturity of all his powers,
and you would rather have said that in that maturity he had found the
secret of perpetual youth. And it was as difficult to believe that
he would ever be aged as it was to imagine that he had ever been in
immature youth.
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