sought no friends, and was
reticent as to his career, saying to those who questioned him about it,
"Wait till I am dead; my deeds will show what I was."

Religion had no place in his heart. He was an avowed unbeliever, making
a boast of his disbelief. He always worked on Sunday, in order that he
might show his disapproval of the observance of it as a day of rest.
Rest, he said, made a man rusty, and attendance upon the worship of God
he denounced as worse than folly. His favorite books were the works of
Voltaire, and he named his best ships after the most celebrated French
infidels.

Yet this man, so unloved, so undeserving of love, is said to have once
had a warm heart. His early troubles and his domestic griefs are said to
have soured and estranged him from mankind.

"No one who has had access to his private papers can fail to be
impressed with the belief that these early disappointments furnish the
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 superadded 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, marring all his cherished expectations, it may be readily
understood why constant occupation became a necessity and labor a
pleasure."

This is the testimony of Mr. Henry W. Arey, the distinguished secretary
of Girard College, in whose keeping are the papers of the subject of
this memoir, and it must be confessed that his view of Girard's
character is sustained by the following incidents, the narration of
which I have passed over until now, in order that the history of his
commercial career might not be interrupted:

In the summer of 1793 the yellow fever broke out with fearful violence
in Philadelphia. The citizens fled in dismay, leaving the plague-smitten
city to its fate. Houses were left tenantless, and the streets were
deserted. It was a season of horror and dread. Those who could not get
away avoided each other, and the sufferers were left to languish and
die. Money could not buy nurses in sufficient numbers, and often the
victims lay unbur