vote the time he could spare from his legislative labors.

These increased as years sped. On the retirement of James G. Blaine from the lower House of Congress, the leadership of his party devolved upon Garfield. It was a post of honor, but it imposed upon him a vast amount of labor. He must qualify himself to speak, not superficially, but from adequate knowledge upon all points of legislation, and to defend the party with which he was allied from all attacks of political opponents.

On this subject he writes, April 21, 1880: "The position I hold in the House requires an enormous amount of surplus work. I am compelled to look ahead at questions likely to be sprung upon us for action, and the fact is, I prepare for debate on ten subjects where I actually take part in but one. For example, it seemed certain that the Fitz John Porter case would be discussed in the House, and I devoted the best of two weeks to a careful re-examination' of the old material, and a study of the new.

"There is now lying on top of my book-case a pile of books, revisions, and manuscripts, three

feet long by a foot and a half high, which I ac cumulated and examined for debate, which certainly will not come off this session, perhaps not at all. I must stand in the breach to meet whatever comes.

"I look forward to the Senate as at least a temporary relief from this heavy work. I am just now in antagonism with my own party on legislation in reference to the election law, and here also I have prepared for two discussions, and as yet have not spoken on either."

My young readers will see that Garfield thoroughly believed in hard work, and appreciated its necessity. It was the only way in which he could hold his commanding position. If he attained. large success, and reached the highest dignity in the power of his countrymen to bestow, it is clear that he earned it richly. Upon some, accident bestows rank; but not so with him. From his earliest years he was growing, rounding out, and developing, till he became the man he was. And had his life been spared to the usual span, it is not likely that he would have desisted, but ripened with years into perhaps the most profound and scholarly statesman the world has seen.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE SCHOLAR IN POLITICS.

In the midst of his political and professiona. activity, Garfield never forgot his days of tranquil enjoyment at Hiram College, when he was devoted solely to the cultivation of his mind, and the extension of his knowledge. He still cherished the same tastes, and so far as his leisure-he had no leisure, save time snatched from the engrossing claims of politics-so far, at any rate, as he could manage the time, he employed it for new acquisitions, or for the review of his earlier studies.

In January, 1874, he made a metrical version of the third ode of Horace's first book. I quote four stanzas:

"Guide thee, O ship, on thy journey, that owest
To Africa's shores Virgil trusted to thee.

I pray thee restore him, in safety restore him,
And saving him, save me the half of my soul.

"Stout oak and brass triple surrounded his bosom Who first to the waves of the merciless sea

Committed his frail bark. He feared not Africa's Fierce battling the gales of the furious North.

"Nor feared he the gloom of the rain-bearing Hyads,
Nor the rage of fierce Notus, a tyrant than whom
No storm-god that rules o'er the broad Adriatic
Is mightier its billows to rouse or to calm.

"What form, or what pathway of death him affrighted Who faced with dry eyes monsters swimming the

deep,

Who gazed without fear on the storm-swollen bil

lows,

And the lightning-scarred rocks, grim with death on the shore?"

In reviewing the work of the year 1874, he writes: "So far as individual work is concerned, I have done something to keep alive my tastes and habits. For example, since I left you I have made a somewhat thorough study of Goethe and his epoch, and have sought to build up in my mind a picture of the state of literature and art in Europe, at the period when Goethe began to work, and the state when he died. I have grouped the various poets into order, so as to preserve memoirs of the impression made upon my mind by the whole. The sketch covers nearly sixty pages of manuscript. I think some work of

this kind, outside the track of one's every-day work, is necessary to keep up real growth."

In July, 1875, he gives a list of works that he had read recently. Among these are several plays of Shakespeare, seven volumes of Froude's England, and a portion of Green's "History of the English People." He did not limit himself to English studies, but entered the realms of French and German literature, having made himself acquainted with both these languages. He made large and constant use of the Library of Congress. Probably none of his political associates made as much, with the exception of Charles Sumner.

Major Bundy gives some interesting details as to his method of work, which I quote: "In all his official, professional, and literary work, Garfield has pursued a system that has enabled him to accumulate, on a vast range and variety of subjects, an amount of easily available information such as no one else has shown the possession of by its use. His house at Washington is a workshop, in which the tools are always kept within immediate reach. Although books overrun his house from top to bottom, his library contains the working material on which he mainly depends.