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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
and industrial colleagues, who, following his
initiative, worked in unison with him, and
who, beyond all others, are able to speak
with authority. It is, in truth, no exagger-
ation to say that, in his immediate indus-
trial domain, he happily solved the vexed
problem of "capital and labor." Though an
aristocrat by instinct and heredity, the
humblest artisan never felt him condescend,
for, with high and low alike, he was always
his natural self, and amid all sorts and con-
ditions of men, "bore himself at manhood's
simple level."
During the last ten years or more of his life, the mental and physical strain on him was enormous, but the spirit of the man was high and invincible to the end. He not only had on his hands the exclusive management for years of a great manufacturing plant, in which he and those near to him had a tre- menduous stake and on the successful main- tenance of which depended the support of thousands of bread-wanners and their fami- lies, but, in addition, he shared the direction and control of so many large corporations, industrial and otherwise, from New York to Alabama, that only the names of the more important may be enumerated here.
Yet (and this is the paramount object- lesson of his noble life), he was never too busy to be accessible to the humblest of those who served him. white or black, never so absorbed, no matter what the stress of urgent engagements, as to turn a deaf ear to the cry of distress. The busy brain never held the mastery over the generous heart. The active hand was always the open hand. Above all. he knew how to give, a thing that many of the most philanthropic never learn. It was because his was what Dante finely calls "the intellect of love." Those who came to him for help were given, in addition to the assistance sought, such words of un- affected sympathy, such kindly encourage- ment, that, not seldom, they carried away something still more precious than the gift itself — the largess of a rekindled self-respect, a dawning hope, that "changes winter into spring." No doubt, he often gave foolishly, as the world counts it. On that score re- monstrance was hopeless. He used to laugh his cheery laugh and say, "Oh, w-ell I'll acknowledge it's selfish, for, after all, I get so much more pleasure out of it than they possibly can." Even in cases where there could be no question of pecuniary aid, his
ready sympathy, his delicate perceptions,
his high ideals of conduct, made him one of
the wisest and most helpful of counsellors
in nice and difficult situations. Insensibly
there arise before the inner eye that shining
Vision that came to Abou Ben Adhem,
when, awaking from "his dream of peace,"
he sees an Angel in the flooding moonlight
"writing in a book of gold," and asks:
"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head; And, with a look made of all sweet accord. Answer'd — "The names of those who love the Lord." "And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so!" Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low, But cheerily still, and said — "I pray thee then, Write me as One that loves his fellow men!" The Angel wrote and vanish'd. The next night It came again, with a great wakening light, And show'd the names whom love of God had
bless'd: And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
When we consider the long array of or- ganizations — religious, philanthropic, pa- triotic, social and economic — in which he was no mere "figure-head," but an impelling force, it seems almost incomprehensible how he managed to find time to play the active part he did in so many, and such widely varying, fields of business endeavor.
Apart from his mechanical and industrial activities (such as the Schloss Sheffield Works, the American Locomotive Com- pany, and others of like kind), he was a di- rector in the Southern Railway Company, director in the New York Ecjuitable Life Assurance Association (this, at the express solicitation of Grover Cleveland, when chairman of the "Committee on Reorganiza- tion"), a member of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia, a trustee of the "University Endowment Fund," president of the Virginia Historical Society, member of the "Advisory Board" of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, a most active and munificent vestryman in two parishes (one in Henrico, and the other in Gloucester), a member of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Virginia, a delegate, year after year, to the Episcopal Council of Virginia, a delegate from 1886 to the day of his death, to the general conven- tion of his church in the United States (which convened in Richmond, owing in chief measure to his instance), a trustee of the "Episcopal High School," a director of the "Jamestown Exposition" (the chief man- agement of which was twice pressed upon
