MEMOEIAL OF GEOEGE GIBBS. 225 



He was a man ; truth was his element ; no fraud or humljug throve 

 m his society. He was as bold to expose as he was quick to see through 

 false pretense. For this he was thought by some as uncompromising 

 beyond reason. He had no enemies. He bore no malice. His was not 

 a nature to see faults in others which were foreign to itself. His 

 friendships were always warm ; his antipathies were rarely i)ersoual. 

 His faults were all those of a large, generous nature, such as one may 

 look to find in the broad, deep-chested, sbort-statured man, whose large 

 play of vital functions keeps him forever harshly busy until the whole 

 machine breaks down in one crash. 



How to speak of his domestic character ! A more lovely nature never 

 breathed. Many an eye moistened as it met the mournful notice of his 

 death. Many a one felt that one of those true friends on whom abso- 

 lute, entire reliance might always be placed, had gone and left a void 

 there is no filling. One mourned him as a brother. Broth erless him- 

 self, he had been wont from early years to attach himself to this frank, 

 noble nature. The attachment of the child for the youth streugthened 

 into friendship as manhood found both on the same level, and through 

 long years of personal intimacy when together and of correspondence 

 when separated, that friendship remained unbroken by a word of 

 quarrel, unshadowed by a look of unkindness. The survivor may be 

 forgiven that, deprived by an ocean's breadth from the fulfillment of the 

 last office of friendship) to his more than kin, he pours out here an 

 offering of memory and affection to his silent shade. 

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