Many feared, many served, but none loved this singular and lonely old
man. If there was among the very few who habitually conversed with him
one who understood and esteemed him, there was but one; and he was a
man of such abounding charity, that, like Uncle Toby, if he had heard
that the Devil was hopelessly damned, he would have said, "I am sorry
for it." Never was there a person more destitute than Girard of the
qualities which win the affection of others. His temper was violent,
his presence forbidding, his usual manner ungracious, his will
inflexible, his heart untender, his imagination dead. He was odious to
many of his fellow-citizens, who considered him the hardest and
meanest of men. He had lived among them for half a century, but he was
no more a Philadelphian in 1830 than in 1776. He still spoke with a
French accent, and accompanied his words with a French shrug and
French gesticulation. Surrounded with Christian churches which he had
helped to build, he remained a sturdy unbeliever, and possessed the
complete works of only one man, Voltaire. He made it a point of duty
to labor on Sunday, as a good example to others.
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