They were never divorced,
but lived--she in New York, or at her villa on Staten Island; Grymes
in New Orleans. He never complained of her; always spoke kindly, and
sometimes affectionately of her; denied the separation, and annually
visited her. Their relations were perfectly amicable, but they could
not live together. Grymes could have lived with no woman. In all
things he was _sui generis_; with no one like him in any one thing,
for he was never the same being two consecutive days. He had no fixed
opinions that any one knew of; he was a blatant Democrat, and yet
never agreed with them in anything; a great advocate of universal
equality, and the veriest aristocrat on earth; he would urge to-day as
a great moral or political truth certain principles, and ridicule them
with contemptuous scorn to-morrow. He was the most devout of
Christians to-day, the most abandoned infidel to-morrow; and always,
and with everybody, striving to appear as base and as abandoned as
profligate man could be: to believe all he said of himself, was to
believe him the worst man on earth. He despised public opinion and
mankind generally; still he was kind in his nature, and generous to
profligacy; was deeply sympathetic, and never turned from the
necessitous without dropping a tear or giving a dollar--the one he
bestowed generously, the other he rarely had to give; but, if an
acquaintance was at hand, he would borrow and give, and the charity of
heart was as sincere as though the money had been his own.
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