Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/126

 118 Southern Historical Society Papers.

the portions of their life-work which, could others know them, would reverse all conceptions of character and turn aversion to affection.

Those who knew Jefferson Davis in intimate relations honored him most and loved him. Genial and gentle, approachable to all, espe- cially regardful of the humble and the lowly, affable in conversation, and enriching it from the amplest stores of a refined and cultured mind, he fascinated those who came within the circle of his society and endeared them to him. Reserved as to himself, he bore the afflictions of a diseased body with scant allusion even when it became needful to plead them in self-defense. With bandaged eyes and weak from suffering, he would come from a couch of pain to vote on public issues, and for over twenty years, with the sight of one eye gone, he dedicated his labors to the vindication of the South from the aspersions which misconceptions and passions had engendered.

At over four-score years he died, with his harness on, his pen yet bright and trenchant, his mental ey.e undimmed, his soul athirst for peace, truth, justice, and fraternity, breathing his last breath in clearing the memories of the Lost Confederacy.

Clear and strong in intellect ; proud, high-minded, sensitive : self- willed, but not self-centred ; self-assertive for his cause, but never for his own advancement ; aggressive and imperious, as are nearly all men fit for leadership ; with the sturdy virtues that command respect, but without the small diplomacies that conciliate hostility, he was one of those characters that naturally make warm friends and bitter ene- mies ; a veritable man, "terribly in earnest,'* such as Carlyle loved to count among the heroes.

NEITHER SELFISH, COLD, NOR CRUEL.

Such a man can never be understood while strife lasts ; and little did they understand him who thought him selfish, cold, or cruel. When he came to Richmond as your President, your generous peo- ple gave him a home, and he declined it. After the war, when dependent on his labor for the bread of his family, kind friends ten- dered him a purse — gracefully refusing, ** Send it,*' he said, "to the poor and suffering soldiers and their families.'' His heart was full of melting charity, and in the Confederate days the complaint was that his many pardons relaxed discipline, and that he would not let the sentences of military courts be executed. Not a human being ever believed for an instant the base imputation that he appropriated Confederate gold. He distributed the last to the soldiers, and " the