Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/288

 278 "I knew him well only after he grew old. His old age, like the sunset, was more beautiful, if less useful, than the mid-day. Age softened without weakening his character. I was much struck, in reading one of the last letters he wrote, with this expression, 'We must have sympathy even with the imaginary troubles of others.' This was hardly in accordance with my previous knowledge of him. Of a healthy nature, with strong self-control, he thought (and rightly) that people should control their imaginations; that there was enough real trouble in the world without any indulgence in morbidness. But, without relaxing his hold over himself, he grew more tender towards the weaknesses of others. He was the most thoroughly natural man I ever knew, without one particle of affectation. Of course he often refrained from uttering his sentiments or opinions, for fear of giving pain; but never, in his whole life, I imagine, did he say anything he did not entirely feel with the motive of pleasing. Of whom beside can we say the same? Praise from him might be justly valued, since he sounded his mind and weighed his words before speaking. He was not irritable or prone to take offence, because he took but little heed of trivialities, yet his was no easy-going amiability, that includes all men and all ways in its indolent charity. Meanness, cruelty, and lies were so utterly abhorrent to him that he needs must speak and feel strongly against their perpetrators.

"Not all the heavenly host sing eternal praises. His guardian spirit must have been Michael, the strong, the terrible, warning all powers of evil! That lightning glance, those words so weighty in truth, so keen in insight, have made many an evil-doer quail before him.

"To see my uncle, in his old age, performing the homely duties of the farm with the same care and exactness he formerly bestowed on matters of great moment; to see him doing the honors of his plain board with the same courtly dignity as when it groaned in luxury; to see him turn to books with the same judgment and interest he formerly bestowed on men, was