It is a sort of insanity, and it is incurable; but it is
about as good a form of madness as any, and all the world is mad in
some, fashion."
This was the substance of what he said of himself when in one of his
moods of free speech, and it gave me a new idea of human nature--a man
whose keen and penetrating brain could subject his own consciousness to
a cool and correct analysis, seeing clearly the folly which he could not
resist. The autobiography of such a man might furnish a curious
psychological study, and explain the formation and development in
society of those moral monsters called misers. Nowhere in literature has
such a character been fully portrayed, though Shakespeare and George
Eliot have given vivid touches of some of its features.
He always retained a kind feeling for the South, over whose hills he had
borne his peddler's pack when a youth. After the war, two young
ex-Confederate soldiers came to San Francisco to seek their fortunes. A
small room adjoining my office was vacant, and the brothers requested me
to secure it for them as cheap as possible. I applied to Reese, telling
him who the young men were, and describing their broken and impecunious
condition.
"Tell them to take the room free of rent--but it ought to bring five
dollars a month.
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