the yoke of political expediency. He sought, first of all, to win the approval of his own conscience and his own sense of right, and then he was willing to "take the consequences," even if they were serious enough to cut short the brilliant career which he so much enjoyed.

I conceive that in this respect he was a model whom I may safely hold up for the imitation of my readers, young or old. Such men do credit to the country, and if Garfield's rule of life could be universally adopted, the country would never be in peril. A conscientious man may make mistakes of judgment, but he can never go far astray.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE TRIBUTES OF FRIENDS.

BEFORE going farther, in order that my young readers may be better qualified to understand what manner of man Garfield was, I will quote the remarks made by two of his friends, one a prominent member of the party opposed to him in politics. In the Milwaukee Sentinel of Sept.. 22d, I find this tribute by Congressman Williams, of that State :

"Happening to sit within one seat of him for four years in the House, I, with others, perhaps had a better opportunity to see him in all of his moods than those more removed. In action he was a giant; off duty he was a great, noble boy. He never knew what austerity of manner or ceremonious dignity meant. After some of his greatest efforts in the House, such as will live in history, he would turn to me, or any one else, and 'Well, old boy, how was that?' Every

say:

man was his confidant and friend, so far as the interchange of every-day good feeling was concerned.

"He once told me how he prepared his speeches ; that first he filled himself with the subject, massing all the facts and principles involved, so far as he could; then he took pen and paper and wrote down the salient points in what he regarded their logical order. Then he scanned them critically, and fixed them in his memory. 'And then,' said he, I leave the paper in my room and trust to the emergency.' He told me that when he spoke at the serenade in New York a year ago, he was so pressed by callers that the only opportunity he had for preparation was, to lock the door and walk three times around the table, when he was called out to the balcony to begin. All the world knows what that speech was.

"He was wrapped up in his family. His two boys would come up to the House just before adjournment, and loiter about his desk with their books in their hands. After the House adjourned, other members would go off in cars or carriages, or walk down the avenue in groups. But Garfield, with a boy on each side of him, would walk down Capitol Hill, as we would say in the

country 'cross-lots,' all three chatting together on equal terms.

"He said to me one day during the canvass, while the tears came to his eyes, 'I have done no more in coming up from poverty than hundreds and thousands of others, but I am thankful that I have been able to keep my family by my side, and educate my children.'

"He was a man with whom anybody could differ with impunity. I have said repeatedly, that were Garfield alive and fully recovered, and a dozen of his intimate friends were to go to him, and advise that Guiteau be let off, he would say, 'Yes, let him go.' The man positively knew no malice. And for such a man to be shot and tortured like a dog, and by a dog!

"He was extremely sensitive. I have seen him come into the House in the morning, when some guerrilla of the press had stabbed him deeper in his feelings than Guiteau's bullet did in the body, and when he looked pallid from suffering, and the evident loss of sleep; but he would utter no murmur, and in some short time his great exuberance of spirits would surmount it all, and he would be a boy again.

"He never went to lunch without a troop of friends with him. He loved to talk at table, and there is no gush in saying he talked a God socially and intellectually. Some of his off-hand expressions were like a burst of inspiration. Like all truly great men, he did not seem to realize his greatness. And, as I have said, he would talk as cordially and confidentially with a child as with a monarch. And I only refer to his conversations with me because you ask me to, and because I think his off-hand conversations with any one reveal his real traits best.

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Coming on the train from Washington, after his nomination, he said: "Only think of this! I am yet a young man; if elected and I serve my term I shall still be a young man. Then what am I going to do? There seems to be no place in America for an ex-President.'

"And then came in what I thought the extreme simplicity and real nobility of the man. 'Why,' said he, 'I had no thought of being nom inated. I had bought me some new books, and was getting ready for the Senate.'

"I laughed at the idea of his buying books, like a boy going to college, and remembered that dur