“March 26, 1881, in the midst of the political tempest following his inauguration, he wrote:  ’I throw you a line across the storm, to let you know that I think, when I have a moment between breaths, of the dear old quiet and peace of Hiram and Mentor.’  How he longed for ’the dear old quiet and peace of Hiram and Mentor’ in the weary days following the assassin’s shot all readers of the newspapers know already.

“Such are some main lines in the character of this great-natured and richly-cultured man.  The outline is but poor and meager.  Well do I remember the days following the Chicago Convention, when the biographers flocked to Mentor.  How hard they found it to compress within the limits both of their time and their pages the life, services, and character of their great subject.  One of these discouraged historians one day wearily said:  ‘General, how much there is of you!’

“Space fails to speak of President Garfield’s short administration.  Fortunately, it is not necessary.  Nor can I give the history of the assassination or sketch the gallant fight for life.  His courage and fortitude, faith and hope, patience and tenderness are a part of his country’s history.  Dying, as well as living, he maintained his great position with appropriate power and dignity.  His waving his white hand to the inmates of the White House, the morning he was borne sick out of it, reminds one of dying Sidney’s motioning the cup of water to the lips of the wounded soldier.  No man’s life was ever prayed for by so many people.  The name of no living man has been upon so many lips.  No sick-bed was ever the subject of so much tender solicitude.  That one so strong in faculties, so rich in knowledge, so ripe in experience, so noble in character, so needful to the nation, and so dear to his friends should be taken in a way so foul almost taxes faith in the Divine love and wisdom.  Perhaps, however, in the noble lessons of those eighty days from July 2d to September 19th, and in the moral unification of the country, history will find full compensation for our great loss.

“Finally, the little white-haired mother and the constant wife must not be passed unnoticed.  How the old mother prayed and waited, and the brave wife wrought and hoped, will live forever, both in history and in legend.  It is not impiety to say that wheresoever President Garfield’s story shall be told in the whole world there shall also this, that these women have done, be told for a memorial of them.”