I do not
remember hearing him speak of the young wife who influenced him so
potently at the most vital moment, and turned him from his whole
scholarly and aristocratic tradition to an impassioned championship of
the oppressed; and he never spoke of the children he had lost. I recall
but one allusion to the days when he was fighting the anti-slavery battle
along the whole line, and this was with a humorous relish of his Irish
servant's disgust in having to wait upon a negro whom he had asked to his
table.
He was rather severe in his notions of the subordination his domestics
owed him. They were "to do as they were bid," and yet he had a
tenderness for such as had been any time with him, which was wounded when
once a hired man long in his employ greedily overreached him in a certain
transaction. He complained of that with a simple grief for the man's
indelicacy after so many favors from him, rather than with any
resentment. His hauteur towards his dependents was theoretic; his actual
behavior was of the gentle consideration common among Americans of good
breeding, and that recreant hired man had no doubt never been suffered to
exceed him in shows of mutual politeness.
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