"Yes, you can recover in this suit," he said once to a client, "but you ought not to do so. This is a case in which law and justice are on opposite sides." And on the client's insisting, Toombs remarked, "Then you must hire some one else to assist you in your damned rascality." 46 Again, a lawyer asked him what fee should be charged in a certain case. "Well," said Toombs, "I should have charged a thousand dollars; but you ought to have five thousand, for you did a great many things I could not have done." 47 And to the end of his life he boasted that he had never had a dirty shilling in his pocket
Even in politics we find these curious contradictions of moderation and sagacity, often of marked conservatism, mingling with the ardor of Toombs's general temperament. It was said of him that he was "violent in speech but safe in counsel," and many things prove that it was often so, though careful study of his general correspondence and of his whole career makes it evident that the violence went deeper than speech. It would be an entire mistake to set him down as a fanatic. According to his own definition, "a fanatic is one of strong feelings and weak points." 48 About him there was nothing weak, neither points nor feelings. A fanatic is apt to be a mild man worked by an idea into fury. Toombs worked fury into the mildest ideas. Yet, when he willed, he could be sedate and reasonable. To one who has been startled by the vehemence of some particular outburst, the full
