This sense of humor gave, also, a great charm to his conversation and to all social intercourse with him.  He was a good, but never, so far as can be judged from tradition, an overbearing talker.  He never appears to have crushed opposition in conversation, nor to have indulged in monologue, which is so apt to be the foible of famous and successful men who have a solemn sense of their own dignity and importance.  What Lord Melbourne said of the great Whig historian, “that he wished he was as sure of anything as Tom Macaulay was of everything,” could not be applied to Mr. Webster.  He owed his freedom from such a weakness partly, no doubt, to his natural indolence, but still more to the fact that he was not only no pedant, but not even a very learned man.  He knew no Greek, but was familiar with Latin.  His quotations and allusions were chiefly drawn from Shakespeare, Milton, Homer, and the Bible, where he found what most appealed to him—­simplicity and grandeur of thought and diction.  At the same time, he was a great reader, and possessed wide information on a vast variety of subjects, which a clear and retentive memory put always at his command.  The result of all this was that he was a most charming and entertaining companion.

These attractions were heightened by his large nature and strong animal spirits.  He loved outdoor life.  He was a keen sportsman and skilful fisherman.  In all these ways he was healthy and manly, without any tinge of the mere student or public official.  He loved everything that was large.  His soul expanded in the free air and beneath the blue sky.  All natural scenery appealed to him,—­Niagara, the mountains, the rolling prairie, the great rivers,—­but he found most contentment beside the limitless sea, amid brown marshes and sand-dunes, where the sense of infinite space is strongest.  It was the same in regard to animals.  He cared but little for horses or dogs, but he rejoiced in great herds of cattle, and especially in fine oxen, the embodiment of slow and massive strength.  In England the things which chiefly appealed to him were the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Smithfield cattle market, and English agriculture.  So it was always and everywhere.  He loved mountains and great trees, wide horizons, the ocean, the western plains, and the giant monuments of literature and art.  He rejoiced in his strength and the overflowing animal vigor that was in him.  He was so big and so strong, so large in every way, that people sank into repose in his presence, and felt rest and confidence in the mere fact of his existence.  He came to be regarded as an institution, and when he died men paused with a sense of helplessness, and wondered how the country would get on without him.  To have filled so large a space in a country so vast, and in a great, hurrying, and pushing democracy, implies a personality of a most uncommon kind.