Leonidas Polk Family Papers

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dying it was as gentle as a woman's. As he had a pressing engagement, our first interview was brief; but in those few minutes he contrived, without any appearance of haste, to ask every question and pay every attention that kindness or courtesty could suggest, and also to make the necessary arrangements for my examination and ordination. At the same time I was in some way conscious that an eye accustomed to observe, and gifted with the insight of sympathy, had taken a quick and comprehensive observation of me. I did not at all feel that I had been scrutinized; I did feel that I was understood."

This portrait of the Bishop is corroborated by the following incident, which has often been told of him: In the dining room of the old Washington Hotel, Vicksburg, Mississippi, one morning as he sat at the table the head waiter, an elderly Negro with the manners of a Chesterfield, approached him, and, bowing low, said to him, "Good morning, General, what can I serve you?" "You are wrong there," said the Bishop, "I am not a General." Not at all abashed, the