In Girard's case, too, there
was another cause of this entire devotion to business. His domestic
sorrows had estranged him from mankind, and driven him into himself.
Mr. Henry W. Arey, the very able and high-minded Secretary of Girard
College, in whose custody are Girard's papers, is convinced that it
was not the love of money which kept him at work early and late to the
last days of his life.
"No one," he remarks,
"who has had access to his private papers, can fail to
become impressed with the belief that these early
disappointments furnish the true key to his entire
character. Originally of warm and generous impulses, the
belief in childhood that he had not been given his share of
the love and kindness which were extended to others changed
the natural current of his feelings, and, acting on a warm
and passionate temperament, alienated him from his home, his
parents, and his friends. And when in after time there were
super-added the years of bitter anguish resulting from his
unfortunate and ill-adapted marriage, rendered even more
poignant by the necessity of concealment, and the consequent
injustice of public sentiment, and marring all his cherished
expectations, it may be readily understood why constant
occupation became a necessity, and labor a pleasure.
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