s of free speech, and it gave me a new idea of human nature--a man
whose keen and penetrating brain could subject his own consciousness to
a cool and correct analysis, seeing clearly the folly which he could not
resist. The autobiography of such a man might furnish a curious
psychological study, and explain the formation and development in
society of those moral monsters called misers. Nowhere in literature has
such a character been fully portrayed, though Shakespeare and George
Eliot have given vivid touches of some of its features.

He always retained a kind feeling for the South, over whose hills he had
borne his peddler's pack when a youth. After the war, two young
ex-Confederate soldiers came to San Francisco to seek their fortunes. A
small room adjoining my office was vacant, and the brothers requested me
to secure it for them as cheap as possible. I applied to Reese, telling
him who the young men were, and describing their broken and impecunious
condition.

"Tell them to take the room free of rent--but it ought to bring five
dollars a month."

It took a mighty effort, and he sighed as he spoke the words. I never
heard of his acting similarly in any other case, and I put this down to
his credit, glad to know that there was a warm spot in that mountain of
mud and ice. A report of this generous act got afloat in the city, and
many were the inquiries I received as to its truth. There was general
incredulity.

His health failed, and he crossed the seas. Perhaps he wished to visit
his native hills in Germany, which he had last seen when a child. There
he died, leaving all his millions to his kindred, save a bequest of one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the University of California. What
were his last thoughts, what was his final verdict concerning human
life, I know not. Empty-handed he entered the world of spirits, where,
the film fallen from his vision, he saw the Eternal Realities. What
amazement must have followed his awakening!

Uncle Nolan.

He was black and ugly; but it was an ugliness that did not disgust or
repel you. His face had a touch both of the comic and the pathetic. His
mouth was very wide, his lips very thick and the color of a ripe damson,
blue-black; his nose made up in width what it lacked in elevation; his
ears were big, and bent forward; his eyes were a dull white, on a very
dark ground; his wool was white and thick. His age might be anywhere
along from seventy onward. A black m