HIS MOTHER 21 



the sight has long been lost. She was always happy, a cheer to 

 the fireside she adorned. I recall her love of children and the 

 devotion to her of the negro servants, her attendants, whose 

 services gave a certain stateliness to her life. I well remember 

 her habit of smoking a single pipeful of tobacco in the evening, 

 the bowl made of corn-cob and the stem of reed. It is the only 

 instance in which I ever saw a woman of station use tobacco, 

 except as snuff. Even in these modern days I have not en- 

 countered such, though I am told that it is common enough in 

 some societies. My great-aunt explained to me that it was the 

 custom of old ladies in her youth. 



My grandfather had four sons and three daughters who came 

 to mature age. Of these but one showed evidence of effective 

 capacity, William Southgate, a lawyer, who made a consider- 

 able reputation as a popular speaker and a wit : he was for some 

 time a member of Congress. He was singularly loved by the 

 people, and with his good share of capacity should have made 

 for himself a large place in political life, but he came to a pre- 

 mature end. Another brother, Henry, also famed as a wit, a 

 very Yorick in his humor, commanded the love of men and 

 women, but went the same rapid way. These brothers, with 

 their rare charm, their trains of admiring followers, and their 

 swift exit, made a great impression on my childish mind. From 

 the social point of view they were essentially unlike anything 

 our race breeds in this day. Their manners and mode of thought 

 were those of the Stuart times, when men felt the life of their 

 neighbors, and dwelt in their hearts. 



I begin my memory of my mother when I was about five years 

 old. Strangely enough, there are at least three of the slaves of the 

 household whose faces were enduringly printed on my mind 

 before my mother's found its place there. As with this, the first 

 deliberate review I have ever made of my threescore years of 

 memory, I recall my mother's qualities, it becomes clear to me 

 that through her came the most of good and the least of evil of 

 my life. For through her, probably more remotely through her 



