We may readily believe him when he tells us
that he never wrote a line for hate's sake. He shrank instinctively
from all that was mean and sordid. Generosity was a marked trait
of his character, an ennobling principle of his nature,
the motive power of his actions, and the mainspring of his life.
Friendship was likewise congenial to his taste, if not a necessity
of his nature; and with him it meant more than a name.
It was a sacred union formed between kindred spirits --
a chain of affection whose binding link was fidelity.
Never was he false to its claims, nor known to have violated its obligations.
Hence he was highly esteemed during life by numerous persons
of all classes and denominations; for his sympathies
were as broad as humanity, and as far-reaching as its wants and its miseries.
Yet he was a man of deep conviction and a strict adherent to principle,
or what he conceived to be principle; for we find him long after the war
still clinging to its memories, and slow to accept its results,
which he believed were fraught with disaster to the people of his section.
A Southerner of the most pronounced kind, he was unwilling
to make any concession to his victorious opponents of the North
which could be withheld from them. Perhaps, upon reflection,
it may not appear wholly strange or inexplicable that he should have so acted.
There was, at least, some foundation for his fears with regard to
the ill fate of those of his section.
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