When Garfield was President, he was asked whether he ever thought,
before his nomination for the office, that he was likely to fill
it, and his answer was curious and characteristic of his manner of
expression. He said he supposed all American young men reflected on
that subject, and he had done so--not with any serious concern, but as
a remote possibility. And he added, "I have fancied the great public
personified and looking with an immense, a rolling, intense eye, over
the millions of the nation, to pick out future Presidents, and thought
as it swept along the ranks the eye might give me a glance, and that
perhaps the meaning of it was: I may want you--some time."
It was my theory, as the editor of an important journal in Ohio during
the time General Garfield served in Congress, that he needed a good
deal of admonition; that he had a tendency to sentimentalism in
politics that called for correction; that he required paragraphs to
brace him up in various affairs; that he lacked a little in worldly
wisdom, and maybe had a dangerous tendency to giving and taking too
much confidence; and that he was disposed to dwell upon a mountain,
and would be the better off for an occasional taking-down with a shade
of good-humored sarcasm. He was still boyish about some things, and
the speculative men in public life sought to beguile him. He was
growing all the time, though. He was a student, and was brainy and
generous, and laughed at "able articles" even if they had stings in
them.
[Illustration: GARFIELD IN 1863