16 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



that what was apparent in him was a mere screen contrived to 

 hide the inner man. This shamefaced motive is in some measure 

 so common among men that it is almost a human characteristic. 

 We generally mask the best that is in us and find our modesty 

 offended if we are found out. But my father's case was a most 

 striking instance of this passion, for this solitude of the soul, 

 combined with a lethargic quality, kept him from playing the 

 part in the world for which his hidden capacities prepared him. 

 He died in consequence of a fall, in the eightieth year of his age, 

 after having apparently completely recovered from a ten years' 

 siege of diabetes, his admirable body having won the fight with 

 the disease. 



So far as my limited knowledge goes, none of the collateral 

 strains of blood on my father's side gave any strength to his 

 stock. They appear to have been of pure English origin, with 

 an intermixture of Welsh and a cross of Hollandish, which came 

 from Van Dykes, some few generations before my own. On his 

 mother's side, there seems to have been a breed of a placid 

 quality, indolent, and with a tendency for the men to waste 

 their lives and squander their estates. 



My mother's family, the Southgates, shows in the five genera- 

 tions known to me much less evidence of capacity than my 

 father's. Yet there is some sign of ability among them, and 

 many of them were interesting people. The name of Southgate 

 comes from the sunny side of London : it is said that the name 

 is from the place. From all I can learn, these sunny-siders have 

 long been a good kind of rather small folk. One or two of them 

 have come to some intellectual station as clergymen; one, by 

 the given name of Henry, as a very minor poet. From that stock 

 which came to Virginia in the early part of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury was Wright Southgate, my great-grandfather, who became 

 a successful merchant and planter, amassing a share of wealth. 

 He seems to have been a man of intellectual quality, for he was 

 enlisted in the schemes of Thomas Jefferson and gave liberally to 

 further them. He married a Miss Lush of Albany, New York, 



