There was a momentary pause after this fervent greeting, emotional on one part only.

“But why did you not meet me at Milledgeville?” asked Mr. Calhoun.  “Most of my friends in this vicinity sustained me there.  I have been discussing the great question[2] again, Favraud, and I should have been glad of your countenance.”

“I have been detained at home of late by a cruel necessity,” was the faltering reply, “or I should never have played recreant to my old master.”

“Good fortune spoiled me a fine lawyer in your case, Victor!  But introduce me to your wife.  Remember, I have never had the pleasure of meeting Madame Favraud,” advancing, as he spoke, toward me, with his hand on Major Favraud’s shoulder (above whom he towered by a head), courteously and impulsively.

“Miss Harz, Miss La Vigne, Miss Durand—­Mr. Calhoun,” said Major Favraud, pale as death now, and trembling as he spoke.  “These ladies are friends of mine—­one, a distant relative”—­he hesitated—­“within the last six weeks I have had the misfortune to lose my wife, Mr. Calhoun.  You understand matters better now.”

All conversation was cut short by this sudden announcement.  Deeply shocked, Mr. Calhoun led Major Favraud aside, with a brief apology to me for his misapprehension, and they stood together, talking low, at the extreme end of the apartment, affording me thus an admirable opportunity for observing the personnel of the great Southern leader, during the brief space of time accorded by the change of stage-horses.  For, with his friends, he was then en route for another appointment.  He was canvassing the State, with a view to a final rally of its resources, preparatory to his last great effort—­to scotch the serpent of the North, which finally, however, wound its insidious folds around the heart of brotherly affection, stifling it, as the snakes of fable were sent to do the baby Hercules.

No picture of Mr. Calhoun has ever done him justice,[3] although his was a physiognomy that an artist could scarcely fail to make an extern likeness of, from its remarkable characteristics.  It was truly an iron-bound face, condensed, powerful in every nerve, muscle, and lineament, and fraught, beyond almost all others, with intellect and resolution.  But the glory and power of that glance and smile no painter could convey—­those attributes of man which more fully than aught else betray the immortal soul!

Just as I beheld him that day, bending above Major Favraud in his tender, half-paternal dignity and solicitude combined, soothing and condoling with him (I could not doubt, from the expression of his speaking countenance), I see him still in mental vision; nor can I wonder more at the depth and strength of enthusiasm he awakened in the hearts of his friends.

It belongs not to every great man to excite this devotion, yet, where it blends with greatness, it is irresistible.  Mohammed, Cyrus, Alexander, Darius, Pericles, Napoleon, were thus magnetically gifted.  I recall few instances of others so distinguished in station who possessed this power, which has its root, perhaps, after all, in the great master-passion of mortality, the yearning for exalted sympathy, so seldom accorded.