Yet this man, so unloved, so undeserving of love, is said to have once had a warm heart. His early troubles and his domestic griefs are said to have soured and estranged him from mankind. "No one who has had access to his private papers can fail to be impressed with the belief that these early disappointments furnish the key to his entire character. Originally of warm and generous impulses, the belief in childhood that he had not been given his share of the love and kindness which were extended to others, changed the natural current of his feelings, and, acting on a warm and passionate temperament, alienated him from his home, his parents, and his friends. And when in after time there were superadded years of bitter anguish, resulting from his unfortunate and ill-adapted marriage, rendered even more poignant by the necessity of concealment, and the consequent injustice of public sentiment, marring all his cherished expectations, it may be readily understood why constant occupation became a necessity and labor a pleasure." This is the testimony of Mr. Henry W. Arey, the distinguished secretary of Girard College, in whose keeping are the papers of the subject of this memoir, and it must be confessed that his view of Girard's character is sustained by the following incidents, the narration of which I have passed over until now, in order that the history of his commercial career might not be interrupted: In the summer of 1793 the yellow fever broke out with fearful violence in Philadelphia. The citizens fled in dismay, leaving the plague-smitten city to its fate. Houses were left tenantless, and the streets were deserted. It was a season of horror and dread. Those who could not get away avoided each other, and the sufferers were left to languish and die. Money could not buy nurses in sufficient numbers, and often the victims lay unburied for days in the places where they had died. So terrible was the panic that it seemed that nothing could stay it. On the 10th of September the _Federal Gazette_, the only paper which had not suspended its publication, contained an anonymous card, stating that of the visitors of the poor all but three had succumbed to the disease or fled from the city, and begging assistance from such benevolent citizens as would consent to render their aid. On the 12th and 14th, meetings were held at the City Hall, at the last of which a volunteer committee was appointed to superintend the measures to be taken for checking the pestilence. Twenty-seven men volunteered to serve, but only twelve had the courage to fulfill their promise. They set to work promptly. The hospital at Bush Hill was reported by the physician to be in a deplorable state--without order, dirty and foul, and in need of nurses. The last, he stated, could not be had for any price. Two of the committee now stepped forward and nobly offered themselves as managers of the hospital. They were Stephen Girard and Peter Helm.