gave some character to his countenance, it was curiously
devoid of expression. He had also the absent
look of a man who either had no thoughts or was absorbed
in thought; and he shuffled along on his enormous feet,
looking neither to the right nor to the left.
There was always a certain look of the old mariner
about him, though he had been fifty years an inhabitant
of the town. When he rode it was in the plainest,
least comfortable gig in Philadelphia, drawn by an
ancient and ill-formed horse, driven always by the
master’s own hand at a good pace. He chose
still to live where he had lived for fifty years, in
Water Street, close to the wharves, in a small and
inconvenient house, darkened by tall storehouses,
amid the bustle, the noise, and the odors of commerce.
His sole pleasure was to visit once a day a little
farm which he possessed a few miles out of town, where
he was wont to take off his coat, roll up his shirt-sleeves,
and personally labor in the field and in the barn,
hoeing corn, pruning trees, tossing hay, and not disdaining
even to assist in butchering the animals which he
raised for market. It was no mere ornamental or
experimental farm. He made it pay. All of
its produce was carefully, nay, scrupulously husbanded,
sold, recorded, and accounted for. He loved his
grapes, his plums, his pigs, and especially his rare
breed of Canary-birds; but the people of Philadelphia
had the full benefit of their increase,—at
the highest market rates.
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. He made no secret of
the fact, that he considered the idleness of Sunday
an injury to the people, moral and economical.
He would have opened his bank on Sundays, if any one
would have come to it. For his part, he required
no rest, and would have none. He never travelled.
He never attended public assemblies or amusements.
He had no affections to gratify, no friends to visit,
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