This observation of mine was but a glimpse at best, for the winding of the stage-horn was the signal for Mr. Calhoun’s departure, and I never saw him more.  But that glimpse alone opened to my eyes a mighty volume!

A few days before I should have rejected as wearisome the details to which I listened with eagerness now, and which I even sought to elicit as to Mr. Calhoun—­his mode of life, his mountain-home, and his passion for those heights he inhabited, and which, no doubt, contributed to train his character to energy and strengthen his physique to endure its brain-burden.  I heard with pleasure the account of one who had passed much of his youth beneath his roof, and who, however enthusiastic, was, in the very framing of his nature, strictly truthful with regard to the mutual devotion of the master and slaves, the invariable courtesy and sweetness of his deportment to his own family, his justice and regard for the feelings of his lowest dependant, his simplicity, his cheerfulness.

“A grave and even gloomy man in public life, he is all life and interest in the social circle,” said Major Favraud.  “His range of thought is the grandest and most unlimited, his powers of conversation are the rarest I have ever met with.  Yet he never refused, on any occasion, to answer with minuteness the inquiries of the smallest child or most insignificant dependant.  ’Had he not been Alexander, he must have been Parmenio.’  Had fortune not struck out for him the path of a statesman, he would have made the most impressive and perfect of teachers.  As it was, without the slightest approach to pedagogism, he involuntarily instructed all who came near him, without effort or weariness on either side.”

“Does he love music—­poetry?” I asked.

“Oh, yes; Scottish songs and classic verse, especially, are his delights.  He has no affectation.  His tastes are all his own—­his opinions all genuine.  He is, indeed, a man of very varied attainment, as well as great grasp of intellect.  Yet, as you see, he likes his opposites sometimes.  Miss Harz,” and he laid his hand proudly on his own manly breast.

Talking thus in that large, low, scantily-furnished parlor, with its split-bottomed chairs, in primitive frames (and in somewhat strange contrast to its well-polished mahogany tables, dark with time, and walls adorned with good engravings), with its floor freshly scoured and sanded, while a simple deal stand in the centre bore a vase filled with the rarest and most exquisite wild-flowers I had ever seen (from the gorgeous amaryllis and hibiscus of these regions, down to wax-like blossoms of fragile delicacy and beauty, whose very names I knew not), and its many small diamond-paned casement-windows, all neatly curtained with coarse white muslin bordered with blue, time passed unconsciously until the noonday meal was announced.