tes.
Between them, I believe, it never went beyond words; but they were
frequent in conflict, and sometimes very bitter and very witty ones
escaped from lovely lips, attesting that the face of beauty was
underlaid with passion's deformity. With the young gallants it went to
blows, and, on a few occasions, to more deadly strife; and always
marred the harmony of the association where there were young
representatives of both States. On one occasion of social meeting at a
public dinner-party in Georgia, a young South Carolinian gave as a
sentiment: "George McDuffie--the pride of South Carolina." This was
immediately responded to by Mirabeau B. Lamar, the late President of
Texas, who was then young, and a great pet of his friends, with
another: "Colonel William Cumming--

"The man who England's arms defied,
A bar to base designers;
Who checked alike old Britain's pride
And noisy South Carolina's."

The wit of the impromptu was so fine and the company so appreciative,
that, as if by common consent, all enjoyed it, and good feeling was not
disturbed.

McDuffie was not above the middle size. His features were large and
striking, especially his eyes, forehead, and nose. The latter was
prominent and aquiline. His eyes were very brilliant, blue, and deeply
set under a massive brow--his mouth large, with finely chiselled lips,
which, in meeting, always wore the appearance of being compressed. In
manners he was retiring without being awkward. His temperament was
nervous and ardent, and his feelings strong. His manner when speaking
was nervous and impassioned, and at times fiercely vehement, and again
persuasive and tenderly pathetic, and in every mood he was deeply
eloquent.

In the after period of life these antagonists were, through the
instrumentality of a noble-hearted Hibernian, reconciled, and sincerely
so--both regretting the past, and willing to bury its memory in social
intimacy. McDuffie married Miss Singleton, of South Carolina, one of
the loveliest and most accomplished ladies of the State.

Owing to the wound received in the duel with Cumming, his nervous
system suffered, and finally his brain. The ball remained imbedded in
the spine, and pressed upon the spinal chord. An attempt to remove it,
the surgeons determined, would be more hazardous to life than to permit
it to remain. There was no remedy. From its effects his mind began to
decay, and finally perished, leaving him, long before his death, a