It is this ability of abilities, this almost perfection of powers, that has made him equal to every occasion, however dire or desperate opposition may have been; that has given him his great prominence in journalism, in halls of legislature, both of state and nation, and in the field of politics. But he has had this mountain-peak of power because beneath and back of it lay a long mountain-range of endeavor, capacity, and growth.
The patient, hard, honest toil of years has ever and anon had its culmination in hours of splendid victory.
V.
A NEW FIELD.
THE years at Georgetown reviewed and solidified the work of his student scholarly life thus far, beside carrying him forward to new fields of conquest. Courtship could not interfere with study and with work, and it did not.
This new relationship had changed somewhat the plan of life. Other years could be but a repetition of the two now nearly passed, so that while he was in the line of promotion and in a place to grow, it was not just the thing, so he relinquished his professorship and went northward.
These years had been eventful in the history of the country. The Mexican war had been fought, and General Taylor, its hero, elected and inaugurated president. Both were triumphs of the Slave-Power.
President Polk had taken part in the ceremonies attendant upon the inauguration of General Taylor, and gone to his home in Tennessee by way of Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans, only to die on the 15th of June, 1849, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.