Page:Letters of Life.djvu/167

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ARISTOCRACY OF THE OLDEN TIME.
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that does nothing for show—makes no sacrifice of principle to popularity, pays every one his due, and is content with the silent plaudit of an approving conscience. Would that his mantle had fallen upon many in our own more stirring times! His lady—a second wife, I believe—possessed an elegance of form and address which would have been conspicuous at any foreign court. She was especially fascinating to the children who visited her, by her liberal presentations of cakes and other pleasing eatables, or, what was to some equally alluring, a readiness to lend fine books with pictures.

Colonel Joshua Huntington had one of the most benign countenances I ever remember to have seen. His calm, beautiful brow was an index of his temper and life. Let who would be disturbed or irritated, he was not the man. He regarded with such kindness as the Gospel teaches the whole human family. At his own fair fireside, surrounded by loving, congenial spirits, and in all social intercourse, he was the same serene and revered Christian philosopher.

General Ebenezer Huntington was a noble specimen of the soldier and patriot. I think I have been told that he left college at the age of sixteen, to join the army of our Revolution, and continued with it during the whole war of eight years. The elegant manner and decision of character that are wont to appertain to the higher grades of the military profession, were con-