Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/63

Rh I would gladly tell you of some good female slave-owner who might be placed as a counterbalance to Mrs. Lallorue, but—I do not know any; such, however, must exist. The very bad make a great noise, and the good but very little. But I must tell you of a gentleman, a slave-owner, who seems to me to stand in the slave States as an opened door to the house of bondage.

Two years ago there died, in New Orleans, a gentleman named Macdonald, who left behind him a property of many millions of dollars, the whole of which he bequeathed for purposes of public benevolence in Louisiana. This singular man, who lived in the most miserly manner, expended next to nothing upon himself, and never gave away anything, not even to his near relatives, who were almost perishing of want; his one thought was how to save, to accumulate, and by the increase of each day to double his capital, and to this end all his activity and industry were applied, even in the smallest thing. He was parsimonious even of his words, and parted with nothing unnecessarily.

Nevertheless he had great thoughts and plans. He considered himself as destined by Providence to acquire an immense property, by means of which to achieve great things for the good of the State of which he was a native. He regarded himself therefore as the steward of his wealth, and maintained that he had no right to give even the smallest portion thereof for the most trifling object. These, at least, were the pretexts with which he gilded his parsimony and his hardness of heart.

He said: “If I, year after year, double my capital in this (a certain given) proportion, I shall in the end become the richest man in Louisiana; I might, continuing in this way, ultimately purchase the whole of Louisiana, and then——.” Then he would do great things, which would make Louisiana the finest and the happiest state in the Union. And Macdonald had views for this purpose, and plans