“When this child was seventeen years of age my wife died.  This girl remained in our house.  I was yet a young man.  Now that my wife was gone, attending to this girl fell entirely into my hands.  I undertook her education.  As her mind unfolded, so many beauteous qualities appeared that she excited my warm admiration.

“By chance, I discovered that the girl loved me; not as a father, but as she would a lover.  She does not know to this day that I made the discovery when I did.  As for myself, I had for some time been madly in love with her.  When I discovered, that my affections were returned, I made proposals, at that time regarded as honorable enough by the majority of white men of the South.

“It seemed as though my proposition did not take her by surprise.  She gently, but most firmly rejected my proposal.  She told me that the proposal was of a nature to occasion deep and lasting repugnance, but that in my case she blamed circumstances and conditions more than she did me.  The quiet, loving manner in which she resented insult and left no tinge of doubt as to her virtue, if possible, intensified my love.  A few days later she came to me and said:  ’Let us go to Canada and get married secretly.  I will return South with you.  No one shall ever know what we have done, and for the sake of your political and social future I will let the people apply whatever name they wish to our relationship.’

“I gladly embraced the proposal, knowing that she would keep faith even unto death; although I realized how keenly her pure soul felt at being regarded as living with me dishonorably.  Yet, love and interest bade her bow her head and receive the public mark of shame.

“Heroic soul!  That is the marriage certificate which I showed you.  You were born.  When you were four years old your mother told me that she must leave, as she could not bear to see her child grow up esteeming her an adulteress.

“The war broke out, and I entered the army, and your mother took you to Europe, where she lived until the war was over, when she returned to Winchester, Virginia.  Her father was a man of wealth, and you own two millions of dollars through your mother.  At my death you shall have eight millions more.

“So much for the past.  Let me tell you of my plans and hopes for your future.  This infernal race prejudice has been the curse of my life.  Think of my pure-hearted, noble-minded wife, branded as a harlot, and you, my own son, stigmatized as a bastard, because it would be suicide for me to let the world know that you both are mine, though you both are the direct descendants of a governor, and a long line of heroes whose names are ornaments to our nation’s history.

“I want you to break down this prejudice.  It is the wish of your mother and your father.  You must move in the front, but all that money and quiet influence can do shall be done by me for your advancement.  I paid Mr. Tiberius Gracchus Leonard two thousand dollars a year to teach you at Winchester.  His is a master mind.  One rash deed robbed the world of seeing a colossal intellect in high station.  I shall tell you his history presently.