That evening at the White House is marked in my memory with a white stone.  The playful simplicity of his conversation and manner, and the particularity of his inquiries about matters and things so insignificant, but which were links in the chain of his memories, I well remember.

“Is old papa Jack and Bellile living?” he asked, after a pause, of my wife, accompanied with a look of eager anxiety.

These were two old Africans, faithful servants of her father; and then there was an anecdote of each of them—­their remarks or their conduct upon some hunting or fishing excursion, in which he had participated forty years before.

I was an interested spectator in the presence of one of nature’s wonderful creations—­one who had made, and who was making, history for his country, and whose name was to descend to future times as one of her noblest sons and greatest historical characters.  I watched every motion of his lips, every expression of his features, and every gleam of his great gray eyes, and I could but wonder at the child-like naturalness of everything about him.  Is not this an attribute of greatness—­to be natural?  Yes; to be natural in all things belongs to truth, and a truthful exhibition of nature, without assumption or deceit, is greatness.  Here was one who could, with natural simplicity, amuse a child; and the same one could command and successfully wield a great army, and, with equal success, direct the destinies of a great nation; whose genius was tempered with simplicity and tenderness, and when towering most in its grandeur, was most truthful to nature.

General Jackson’s early opportunities were extremely limited.  His education was so very defective, that his orthography was almost ludicrous, and his general reading amounted to almost nothing.  At no time was he a respectable county-court lawyer, so far as legal learning was concerned, and it is wonderful how the natural vigor of his mind supplied this defect.  On the bench, his greatest aim was to get at the facts in every case, and to decide all points upon the broad principles of equity; and in all his charges to the jury, his principal aim was to direct their attention to the simple justice of the case, and a favorite phrase of his in these charges was:  “Do right between the parties, and you will serve the objects of the law.”

He was an enemy to all unnecessary forms in all matters.  His manner was to go directly to the kernel, and he was very indifferent as to how the shell was cracked, or the husk removed.  He never seemed to reason.  Upon the presentation of any subject to his mind, it seemed, with electrical velocity, to cut through to a conclusion as if by intuition.  He was correct in his conclusions more frequently than any man of his age.  His knowledge of human nature was more consummate than that of any of his compeers who were remarkable for greatness of mind.  In this, as in all other matters, his opinion was formed with the first glance.  His intimacy with every sort of character, in his extended intercourse with the world, seemed so to have educated his faculties and whetted his perception, that he only wanted to look at a man for five minutes to know his inmost nature.  Yet he was sometimes deceived, and, ascertaining this, nothing enraged him more.