Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/10

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PREFACE.

father's descendants. Should this be so, I shall not regret laying bare much that is private and sacred.

He was like his Jaqueline ancestors in appearance. The "grand look" of the first Jaquelines and what we knew as the "Jaqueline black eyes" were his. Several times in his life he was asked as a favor by painters to sit for his portrait; on two occasions by distinguished artists whom he met casually. "I want a patrician head for an historical picture that I am painting," one said.

He never suspected any one of wishing to be otherwise than strictly upright, and, consequently, was frequently defrauded in his dealings with dishonest people. Once, during the latter years of his life, when in extremest poverty, he made a rather worse bargain than usual.

"I do not think that you ever made a good bargain in your life," some one said.

"No, I never tried," was the emphatic answer. "A good bargain always means that somebody makes a bad one."

"Uncle Tom," one of his brother's children said to him, "why do you deny yourself everything? Your credit is good. You could get thousands of dollars if you chose."

"Yes, my dear, my credit is good; and I mean to keep it so," he replied, in a manner that precluded further argument on that subject.

S.D.S.

Baltimore, 1303 John Street, June 1, 1886.