Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ... OLD AGE AND DEATH And where during all these varying experiences of Mrs. Madison's life, when she stood so much in need of counsel and support, was the son who should have rendered both? This was the question which all Mrs. Madison's friends asked, and none could answer. For his mother, her feelings had been long ago summed up in a last vain appeal to his better nature, when she wrote: "I have said in my late letters as well as in this all that I thought sufficient to influence you. 1 must now put my trust in God alone." Payne Todd's life presents a melancholy picture of wasted opportunities, of grace and charm blurred and at last obliterated by gluttony and dissipation, of demonstrative affection transformed into filial indifference and ingratitude by long years of self-indulgence. Yet, while this undutiful son was doing all in his power to break his mother's heart, he per267 suadcd himself that he loved her and intended to do much, but always in the future, to make her happy. When his debts had made necessary the sale of Montpellier and its slaves, he soothed his regrets by building on his estate nearby, known as "Toddsbirth," a strange conglomeration of cottages, one of which he intended for his mother's occupancy, and so arranged that by one of its long windows she could enter a great tower wherein he had planned a ball-room and state dining-apartment. Of course lack of funds prevented the completion of this eccentric home, as well as the carrying out of his scheme for a silk-farm, for which, after his usual unbusinesslike fashion, he had brought over from France a number of silk manufacturers before even planting mulberry-trees or hatching silk-worms. His appetite he gratified as freely as his whims; and while Mrs. Madison and her...