He will sign nothing unless it be a common letter prepared by his private secretary, without reading every word. But out among men his activity is quick and constant. He is always in motion, not in an aimless, nervous way, but in a wide-awake, fully alive manner. His battery is ever charged with the freshest and purest electricity. It would be a thing incredible to find him asleep in the day-time.
He had a singular habit when editor, of folding up little slips of paper and inserting them between his teeth quickly, or tearing them off from a newspaper, inserting them, and then throwing them away, so that after a few moments’ conversation, he would be surrounded with bits of paper which he had torn off and used in this way.
Long walks have been his habit, and at times he would strike off across the fields and jump the fences. “What,” I said to my informant, “jump the fences?” “Yes,” he said, and another party confirmed it. To go across lots, they say, is “the Yankee of it.”
This vigorous exercise is a part of his programme for keeping up his health. He has had a cross-bar also, for athletic sports, and made use of it, too. Life is never dull and monotonous with him, but always full to the brim.
It is this active, energetic spirit which took him to England, and for four or five months all over the continent of Europe; and in 1875 to California, and up and down the Pacific coast; and it was this same mighty energy of being, which led him to make five speeches a day sometimes when he was campaigning in Ohio. He did this one day, when the last one was to an immense assemblage in Columbus. And he generally spoke until he was quite satisfied that he had the people with him, and they were certain to vote about right when the time came. His resources of strength, at times, seems amazing. Many who have known him for thirty years, speak of his great energy, of his decision of character, of his power with an audience.
His private secretary, who has been by his side for fifteen years, says that all the time he was speaker in congress, he was never late a single moment, that just exactly at twelve o’clock, the usual time for meeting, his gavel would fall, and the House be called to order.
It is a consciousness of responsibility, and conscientiousness in the discharge of duty, great readiness for the work, and eagerness to perform it, that have made him prompt, energetic, accurate, and determined.
He has been among the broadest of men in his thinking, reading, observation, experience, travel, sympathy, purpose, motive, and activities. Truly his life has been onward and upward, and with these as his principal characteristics he has been tested as few men are tested, and not found wanting. In ten great departments,—as student, teacher, editor, stump-speaker, legislator, speaker of the House at home, congressman, speaker of the National House of Representatives, United States senator, and secretary of state,—has he been tried, and not found wanting. Only a man of transcendent abilities could have triumphed in such a career.
