Provoked by
the sneer and sarcasm of the man whom at the same moment he most
cordially despised, we have seen him taking a position in the
controversy, in which his person, though not actually within the
immediate sphere of action, was nevertheless not a little exposed to
some of its risks. This position, with fearless indifference, he
continued to maintain, unshrinkingly and without interruption,
throughout the whole period and amid all the circumstances of the
conflict. There was something of a boyish determination in this way to
assert his courage, which his own sense inwardly rebuked; yet such is
the nature of those peculiarities in southern habits and opinions, to
which we have already referred, on all matters which relate to personal
prowess and a masculine defiance of danger, that, even while
entertaining the most profound contempt for those in whose eye the
exhibition was made, he was not sufficiently independent of popular
opinion to brave its current when he himself was its subject.
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