Theodore Winthrop

“ But each Edwin, with the sword and portrait of the first American, handed down the still more precious heirlooms of the family, — honor unblemished, quick sympathies, a tender heart, a generous hand, refinement, courtesy, — in short, all the qualities of mind and person that go “to grace a gentleman.”
It became the office of each to be the type gentleman of his time.
Perhaps that was enough. Perhaps they were purposely isolated from other offices. Nature takes no small pains to turn out her type blackguard a complete model of ignobility, and makes it his exclusive business to be himself. ”

“ They never held their own in the world, much less took what was another’s. Each was conscious of a certain latent force, and left it latent. They lived weakly, and died young, like fair exotics. They were a mild, inefficient, ineffectual, lovely, decaying race, strong in all the charming qualities, feeble in all the robust ones. ”

“ A third Edwin succeeded him, a fourth followed, and in 1736 the fifth Edwin Brothertoft was born. He was an only child, like each of his forefathers. These pages chronicle his great joy and his great sorrow, and how he bore himself at a crisis of his individual life. Whoever runs may read stories like his in the broad light of to-day. ”