t war. Such things did not
stir him. He remained either stiff or relaxed. But one day they were out
on the farm together; and as this man watched his live-stock, he
unconsciously took a fine, alive attitude. So the sculptor made a statue
of him that way; and that statue is famous.

In spite of his usual benignity, this man had a temper. He used to get
very sore and warm at times, when unfairly criticized. At one of his
cabinet meetings, for instance, says a contemporary, he became "much
inflamed, got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself,
ran on much on the personal abuse which had been bestowed on him [and
said] that by God he had rather be in his grave than in his present
situation. That he had rather be on his farm than to be made emperor of
the world, and yet that they were charging him with wanting to be a
king. That that rascal Freneau sent him three of his papers every day,
as if he thought he would become the distributor of his papers; that he
could see nothing in this but an impudent design to insult him," etc.,
etc. Poor, stung human being; with all his serenity gone!

A great portrait painter said of him that his features were indicative
of the strongest and most ungovernable passions; and had he been born in
the forests, it was his opinion that he would have been the fiercest man
among the savage tribes.

This was the temperament that smoldered in him: the lurking flame that
he had to live with daily. But by reflection and resolution he obtained
a firm ascendancy over it.

One night when he was sixty-seven years old he woke up at about two in
the morning feeling very unwell. He had had a sore throat, and now he
couldn't swallow; felt suffocated. A miserable feeling. His wife would
have got up to call a servant; but he wouldn't allow her to do it lest
she should catch cold. He lay there for four hours in the cold bedroom,
his body in a chill, before receiving any attention or before even a
fire was lighted. Then they sent for the doctors. They bled the old hero
three times, taking the last time a quart. He was physically a vigorous
man, but this weakened him greatly. "I find I am going," he said. He was
in great pain, and said, "Doctor, I die hard." A little later he added:
"I feel I am going. I thank you for your attention, you had better not
take any more trouble about me, but let me go off quietly." His
breathing became much easier just at the end.

Did he look back over his life a