i66 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
- ' Let my days be brought to an end in my own native
land ! Let my last breath be of my own native air ! My native land, my country, the only one that is country to me, is Georgia. The winds that sweep over her hills are His home farm may be barren, may be simple. It has neither luxury nor splendor. But to him it is everything. When a young man, just beginning life, with boundless ambition, a good opening and large salary were offered him away from home. But he unhesitatingly preferred to practice in his native town, though earning only a few hundred dollars a year.^^ And in old age and exile, as he turned generally to Georgia, so he longed most of all for the remembered haunts of youth and happiness. *' That old homestead and that quiet lot. Liberty Hall, in Craw- fordsville, sterile and desolate as they may seem to others, are bound to me by associations tender as heartstrings and strong as hooks of steel." ^e
These local affections sometimes take the place of hu- man ties, and there are men — men especially — who, if they can live where they will, care not with whom they live. It was not so with Stephens. His love for his friends was as deep as his love for home. Among the great num- ber of these none was nearer than Robert Toombs, and the marked contrast between the two men makes their intimate relation singularly charming. Stephens was little and frail ; Toombs huge and solid. Stephens was a thinker ; Toombs a liver. Toombs conquered men ; Ste-
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