"
His face, too, from this time, assumed that haggard, cast-iron,
intense, introverted aspect which struck every beholder.
Miss Martineau, in her Retrospect of Western Travel, has given us some
striking and valuable glimpses of the eminent men of that period,
particularly of the three most eminent, who frequently visited her
during her stay in Washington. This passage, for example, is highly
interesting.
"Mr. Clay sitting upright on the sofa, with his snuffbox
ever in his hand, would discourse for many an hour in his
even, soft, deliberate tone, on any one of the great
subjects of American policy which we might happen to start,
always amazing us with the moderation of estimate and speech
which so impetuous a nature has been able to attain. Mr.
Webster, leaning back at his ease, telling stories, cracking
jokes, shaking the sofa with burst after burst of laughter,
or smoothly discoursing to the perfect felicity of the
logical part of one's constitution, would illuminate an
evening now and then. Mr. Calhoun, the cast-iron man, who
looks as if he had never been born and could never be
extinguished, would come in sometimes to keep our
understandings on a painful stretch for a short while, and
leave us to take to pieces his close, rapid, theoretical,
illustrated talk, and see what we could make of it.
Pages:
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299