habit of considering and preparing in advance for contingencies. Avoid with scrupulous care reading or listening to anything unclean or impure."
The achievements of Admiral Watson speak for themselves. The art of success in life may be summed up as concentration on chose things that are best worth knowing and doing; and he early those a course suited to his ability, and devoted his energy most directly to perfecting himself in everything pertaining to the naval profession. His high purpose and his ability to see and seize opportunity when it presented itself, led to his rapid promotion. At the outbreak of the Civil war he was very young; yet he did good service as an officer; and his life of uninterrupted patriotic service in the navy spans the period between that war and the Spanish war, when the powers of his mature judgment were again at the disposal of the government in war, and when he was fully equipped for the carrying out of the high responsibilities of trust and authority imposed upon him. All his military capacity and ambition were set on fire in the earlier stages of his career, by his proximity to Farragut. Their friendship illustrates the high qualities of both men. The loyal admiration of the younger man for his superior officer made it possible for Watson to receive something of Farragut's spirit and power, and so to become one of those who have helped to continue the line of heroes to our own day.
He was married in May, 1873, to Elizabeth Anderson Thornton, his cousin, the daughter of Judge James Dabney Thornton, of San Francisco. They have had eight children, seven of whom were living in 1905.
