You had in him, indeed, the
highest image of that stanch old order from which he was sprung, and
might have said, "Here's the soul of a baron in the body of a
peasant." For he really looked, when well examined, like all the
virtues done in roughcast.
With him the age of necessary and of well-merited repose had now come;
and judging that he could attain it only by quitting that habitual
scene of business where it would still solicit him, he transferred his
newspaper, his printing-office, and the bookstore which he had made
their adjunct in Raleigh, as in Sheffield, to his third son, Weston;
and removed to Washington, in order to pass the close of his days near
two of the dearest of his children,--his son Joseph and his daughter
Mrs. Seaton,--from whom he had been separated the most.
In renouncing all individual aims, Mr. Gales fell not into a mere life
of meditation, but sought its future pleasures in the adoption of a
scheme of benevolence, to the calm prosecution of which he might
dedicate his declining powers, so long as his advanced age should
permit. A worthy object for such efforts he recognized in the plan of
African colonization, and of its affairs he accepted and almost to his
death sustained the management in chief; achieving not less, by his
admirable judgment, the warm approval and thanks of that wide-spread
association, than, by the most amiable virtues of private life,
winning in Washington, as he had done everywhere else, from all that
approached him, a singular degree of deference and affection.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233