What he called his religion had no effect whatever upon
the conduct of his life; it made him go to church, talk piously, puff
the clergy, and "patronize Providence,"--no more. He would accept
retaining fees, and never look into the bundles of papers which
accompanied them, in which were enclosed the hopes and the fortune of
anxious households. He would receive gifts of money, and toss into his
waste-paper basket the list of the givers, without having glanced at
its contents; thus defrauding them of the only recompense in his power
to grant, and the only one they wished. It shocked him if his
secretary came to the dinner-table in a frock-coat, and he would
himself appear drunk before three thousand people. And yet, such was
the power of his genius, such was the charm of his manner, such the
affectionateness of his nature, such the robust heartiness of his
enjoyment of life, that honorable men who knew his faults best loved
him to the last,--not in spite of them, but partly in consequence of
them. What in another man they would have pronounced atrocious,
appeared in him a kind of graceful rollicking helplessness to resist.
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