with a now classic interest.

Prominent among the visitors was the leonine General Lee, a Colossus in
person and in mind. In spirit brave as a true hero, but in manner gentle
as a woman. In the sweet solace of sympathy his heart went out to the
blind girl, and assumed the tangible form of solid favors, for by his
personal efforts under the magic influence and royal mandate of his
imperial power many a little volume was appropriated that would have been
otherwise unnoticed.

George Peabody was also a guest, but in this, his last visit to his native
country, he was too ill and prostrate to receive friends. I felt for him a
strong personal sympathy for his beneficence to my native city, to which
he ever acknowledged himself indebted for his first business success; and
in which the pure, white marble structure, with its magnificent library
and other appointments, so well known as "The Peabody Institute," stands
as a monument of his munificence.

Returning to Richmond, we took the James River route to Baltimore, a trip
fraught with varied interest.

At Yorktown, that city of eld, we landed to take in a cargo of freight,
not neglecting the usual store of oysters, of which we had at supper a
sumptuous feast and it was from no fickle epicurean fancy that all
pronounced these delicious bivalves the finest in the world, for,
certainly, never before or since have we partaken of them with such rare
relish and absolute gusto.