THE LESSONS OF HIS LIFE.
Probably the nearest and closest friend of Garfield, intellectually
speaking, was his successor in the presidency of Hiram College, B.A.
Hinsdale. If any one understood the dead President it was he. For many
years they corresponded regularly, exchanging views upon all topics that
interested either. They would not always agree, but this necessarily
followed from the mental independence of each. To Mr. Hinsdale we turn
for a trustworthy analysis of the character and intellectual greatness
of his friend, and this he gives us in an article published in the N.Y.
_Independent_ of Sept. 29, 1881:
"First of all, James A. Garfield had greatness of nature. Were I limited
to one sentence of description, it would be: He was a great-natured man.
He was a man of strong and massive body. A strong frame, broad
shoulders, powerful vital apparatus, and a massive head furnished the
physical basis of his life. He was capable of an indefinite amount of
work, both physical and mental. His intellectual status was equally
strong and massive. He excelled almost all men both in the patient
accumulation of facts and in bold generalization. He had great power of
logical analysis, and stood with the first in rhetorical exposition. He
had the best instincts and habits of the scholar. He loved to roam in
every field of knowledge. He delighted in the creations of the
imagination--poetry, fiction, and art. He loved the deep things of
philosophy. He took a keen interest in scientific research. He gathered
into his storehouse the facts of history and politics, and threw over
the whole the life and power of his own originality.
"The vast labors that he crowded into those thirty years--labors rarely
equaled in the history of men--are the fittest gauge of his physical and
intellectual power. His moral character was on a scale equally large and
generous. His feelings were delicate, his sympathies most responsive,
his sense of justice keen. He was alive to delicate points of honor. No
other man whom I have known had such heart. He had great faith in human
nature and was wholly free from jealousy and suspicion. He was one of
the most helpful and appreciative of men. His largeness of views and
generosity of spirit were such that he seemed incapable of personal
resentment. He was once exhorted to visit moral indignation upon some
men who had wronged him deeply. Fully appreciating the baseness of their
conduct, he said he would try, but added: 'I am afraid some one will
have to help me.'
"What is more, General Garfield was religious, both by nature and by
habit. His mind was strong in the religious element. His near relatives
received the Gospel as it was proclaimed fifty years ago by Thomas and
Alexander Campbell. He made public profession of religion before he
reached his twentieth year and became a member of the same church, and
such he remained until his death. Like all men of his thought and
reading, he understood the hard questions that modern science and
criticism have brought into the field of religion. Whether he ever
wrought these out to his own full satisfaction I can not say. However
that may be, his native piety, his early training, and his sober
convictions held him fast to the great truths of revealed religion.
Withal, he was a man of great simplicity of character. No one could be
more approachable. He drew men to him as the magnet the iron filings.
This he did naturally and without conscious plan or effort. At times,
when the burden of work was heavy and his strength overdrawn, intimate
friends would urge him to withdraw himself somewhat from the crowds that
flocked to him; but almost always the advice was vain. His sympathy with
the people was immediate and quick. He seemed almost intuitively to read
the public thought and feeling. No matter what was his station, he
always remembered the rock from which he had himself been hewn.
Naturally he inspired confidence in all men who came into contact with
him. When a young man, and even a boy, he ranked in judgment and in
counsel with those much his seniors.
"It is not remarkable, therefore, that he should have led a great
career. He was always with the foremost or in the lead, no matter what
the work in hand. He was a good wood-chopper and a good canal hand; he
was a good school janitor; and, upon the whole, ranked all competitors,
both in Hiram and in Williamstown, as a student. He was an excellent
teacher. He was the youngest man in the Ohio Senate. When made
brigadier-general, he was the youngest man of that rank in the army.
When he entered it, he was the youngest man on the floor of the House of
Representatives. His great ability and signal usefulness as teacher,
legislator, popular orator, and President must be passed with a single
reference.
"He retained his simplicity and purity of character to the end. Neither
place nor power corrupted his honest fiber. Advancement in public favor
and position gave him pleasure, but brought him no feeling of elation.
For many years President Garfield and the writer exchanged letters at
the opening of each new year. January 5th, last, he wrote:
"'For myself, the year has been full of surprises, and has brought more
sadness than joy. I am conscious of two things: first, that I have never
had, and do not think I shall take, the Presidential fever. Second, that
I am not elated with the election to that office. On the contrary, while
appreciating the honor and the opportunities which the place brings, I
feel heavily the loss of liberty which accompanies it, and especially
that it will in a great measure stop my growth.'
"March 26, 1881, in the midst of the political tempest following his
inauguration, he wrote: 'I throw you a line across the storm, to let you
know that I think, when I have a moment between breaths, of the dear old
quiet and peace of Hiram and Mentor.' How he longed for 'the dear old
quiet and peace of Hiram and Mentor' in the weary days following the
assassin's shot all readers of the newspapers know already.
"Such are some main lines in the character of this great-natured and
richly-cultured man. The outline is but poor and meager. Well do I
remember the days following the Chicago Convention, when the biographers
flocked to Mentor. How hard they found it to compress within the limits
both of their time and their pages the life, services, and character of
their great subject. One of these discouraged historians one day wearily
said: 'General, how much there is of you!'
"Space fails to speak of President Garfield's short administration.
Fortunately, it is not necessary. Nor can I give the history of the
assassination or sketch the gallant fight for life. His courage and
fortitude, faith and hope, patience and tenderness are a part of his
country's history. Dying, as well as living, he maintained his great
position with appropriate power and dignity. His waving his white hand
to the inmates of the White House, the morning he was borne sick out of
it, reminds one of dying Sidney's motioning the cup of water to the lips
of the wounded soldier. No man's life was ever prayed for by so many
people. The name of no living man has been upon so many lips. No
sick-bed was ever the subject of so much tender solicitude. That one so
strong in faculties, so rich in knowledge, so ripe in experience, so
noble in character, so needful to the nation, and so dear to his friends
should be taken in a way so foul almost taxes faith in the Divine love
and wisdom. Perhaps, however, in the noble lessons of those eighty days
from July 2d to September 19th, and in the moral unification of the
country, history will find full compensation for our great loss.
"Finally, the little white-haired mother and the constant wife must not
be passed unnoticed. How the old mother prayed and waited, and the
brave wife wrought and hoped, will live forever, both in history and in
legend. It is not impiety to say that wheresoever President Garfield's
story shall be told in the whole world there shall also this, that these
women have done, be told for a memorial of them."
End of Project Gutenberg's From Canal Boy to President, by Horatio Alger, Jr.