“He said to me one day during the canvass, while the tears came to his eyes, ’I have done no more in coming up from poverty than hundreds and thousands of others, but I am thankful that I have been able to keep my family by my side, and educate my children.’

“He was a man with whom anybody could differ with impunity.  I have said repeatedly, that were Garfield alive and fully recovered, and a dozen of his intimate friends were to go to him, and advise that Guiteau be let off, he would say, ‘Yes, let him go.’  The man positively knew no malice.  And for such a man to be shot and tortured like a dog, and by a dog!

“He was extremely sensitive.  I have seen him come into the House in the morning, when some guerrilla of the press had stabbed him deeper in his feelings than Guiteau’s bullet did in the body, and when he looked pallid from suffering, and the evident loss of sleep; but he would utter no murmur, and in some short time his great exuberance of spirits would surmount it all, and he would be a boy again.

“He never went to lunch without a troop of friends with him.  He loved to talk at table, and there is no gush in saying he talked a God socially and intellectually.  Some of his off-hand expressions were like a burst of inspiration.  Like all truly great men, he did not seem to realize his greatness.  And, as I have said, he would talk as cordially and confidentially with a child as with a monarch.  And I only refer to his conversations with me because you ask me to, and because I think his off-hand conversations with any one reveal his real traits best.

“Coming on the train from Washington, after his nomination, he said:  ’Only think of this!  I am yet a young man? if elected and I serve my term I shall still be a young man.  Then what am I going to do?  There seems to be no place in America for an ex-President.’

“And then came in what I thought the extreme simplicity and real nobility of the man.  ‘Why,’ said he, ’I had no thought of being nominated.  I had bought me some new books, and was getting ready for the Senate.’

“I laughed at the idea of his buying books, like a boy going to college, and remembered that during his Congressional career he had furnished materials for a few books himself.  And then, with that peculiar roll of the body and slap on the shoulder with the left hand, which all will recognize, he said:  ’Why! do you know that up to 1856 I never saw a Congressional Globe, nor knew what one was!’ And he then explained how he stumbled upon one in the hands of an opponent in his first public anti-slavery debate.

“A friend remarked the other day that Garfield would get as enthusiastic in digging a six-foot ditch with his own hands, as when making a speech in Congress.  Such was my observation.  Going down the lane, he seemed to forget for the time that there was any Presidential canvass pending.  He would refer, first to one thing, then another, with that off-hand originality which was his great characteristic.  Suddenly picking up a smooth, round pebble, he said, ’Look at that!  Every stone here sings of the sea.’