hanging his Sunday-school
every time he changed his religion. He was correspondingly erratic in
his politics--Whig to-day, Democrat next week, and anything fresh that
he could find in the political market the week after. I may remark here
that throughout his long life he was always trading religions and
enjoying the change of scenery. I will also remark that his sincerity
was never doubted; his truthfulness was never doubted; and in matters of
business and money his honesty was never questioned. Notwithstanding his
forever-recurring caprices and changes, his principles were high, always
high, and absolutely unshakable. He was the strangest compound that ever
got mixed in a human mould. Such a person as that is given to acting
upon impulse and without reflection; that was Orion's way. Everything he
did he did with conviction and enthusiasm and with a vainglorious pride
in the thing he was doing--and no matter what that thing was, whether
good, bad or indifferent, he repented of it every time in sackcloth and
ashes before twenty-four hours had sped. Pessimists are born, not made.
Optimists are born, not made. But I think he was the only person I have
ever known in whom pessimism and optimism were lodged in exactly equal
proportions. Except in the matter of grounded principle, he was as
unstable as water. You could dash his spirits with a single word; you
could raise them into the sky again with another one. You could break
his heart with a word of disapproval; you could make him as happy as an
angel with a word of approval. And there was no occasion to put any
sense or any vestige of mentality of any kind into these miracles;
anything you might say would answer.

He had another conspicuous characteristic, and it was the father of
those which I have just spoken of. This was an intense lust for
approval. He was so eager to be approved, so girlishly anxious to be
approved by anybody and everybody, without discrimination, that he was
commonly ready to forsake his notions, opinions and convictions at a
moment's notice in order to get the approval of any person who disagreed
with them. I wish to be understood as reserving his fundamental
principles all the time. He never forsook those to please anybody. Born
and reared among slaves and slaveholders, he was yet an abolitionist
from his boyhood to his death. He was always truthful; he was always
sincere; he was always honest and honorable. But in light
matters--matters of small c