t acquaintance with European history or with any
branch of philosophy.

The want of regular education was not made up for by the persons among
whom his lot was cast. Till he was a grown man, he never moved in any
society from which he could learn those things with which the mind of an
orator or a statesman ought to be stored. Even after he had gained some
legal practice, there was for many years no one for him to mix with
except the petty practitioners of a petty town, men nearly all of whom
knew little more than he did himself.

Schools gave him nothing, and society gave him nothing. But he had a
powerful intellect and a resolute will. Isolation fostered not only
self-reliance but the habit of reflection, and, indeed, of prolonged and
intense reflection. He made all that he knew a part of himself. He
thought everything out for himself. His convictions were his own--clear
and coherent. He was not positive or opinionated, and he did not deny
that at certain moments he pondered and hesitated long before he decided
on his course. But though he could keep a policy in suspense, waiting
for events to guide him, he did not waver. He paused and reconsidered,
but it was never his way either to go back upon a decision once made, or
to waste time in vain regrets that all he expected had not been
attained. He took advice readily, and left many things to his ministers;
but he did not lean upon his advisers. Without vanity or ostentation, he
was always independent, self-contained, prepared to take full
responsibility for his acts.

That he was keenly observant of all that passed under his eyes, that his
mind played freely round everything it touched, we know from the
accounts of his talk, which first made him famous in the town and
neighbourhood where he lived. His humour, and his memory for anecdotes
which he could bring out to good purpose, at the right moment, are
qualities which Europe deems distinctively American, but no great man of
action in the nineteenth century, even in America, possessed them in the
same measure. Seldom has so acute a power of observation been found
united to so abundant a power of sympathy.

These remarks may seem to belong to a study of his character rather than
of his speeches, yet they are not irrelevant, because the interest of
his speeches lies in their revelation of his character. Let us, however,
return to the speeches and to the letters, some of which, given in this
volume, are scarcely less n