prayerful man. I read the Bible and the Prayer Book every day." *'Then why not be baptized, General?" "Baptize me, doctor," was the prompt reply.^s
Especially attractive is Toombs's affection for his wife and the tenderness apparent in the few published frag- ments of his letters to her. She was a woman well worth his attachment and the perfect marital fidelity, empha- sized by all his biographers, is distincdy noticeable in a man of such a vigorous and impetuous temperament, beset at all times by so many temptations. The frank- ness, sincerity, and genuine humility of his nature show well in a passage written to Mrs. Toombs, after their daughter's death: *' God bless you! Pray for me, that I may be a better man in the next year than in all the old ones before in my time." 39 And equally attractive is the following expression of gratitude after twenty years of marriage : ** I know for whatever success in life I may have had, whatever evil I may have avoided, or what- ever good I may have done, I am indebted to the beau- tiful, pure-hearted, true, little girl, who on the i8th of November, 1830, came trustingly to my arms, the sweet-
Toombs's excellent balancing traits were by no means confined to domestic and social life. We have seen some- thing of his headlong fury ; but this was constantly tem- pered by shrewdness, by foresight, by restraint and mod- eration, when these qualities were clearly called for by circumstances. We have already heard Stephens testify-
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