this country has had a
stronger personal following since the days of Harry Clay.

Blaine is a man of great physical capacities. He has great powers of
application. His mind works quickly. He is as restless as the ocean and
has the power of accomplishing an immense amount of work. Another
quality which he possesses--rare but invaluable to a public man--is that
of remembering names and faces, of remembering men and all about them.
This ability is partly natural, partly the result of his training. He
has made it a study to get acquainted with men.

His knowledge of facts, dates, events, men in our history, is not only
remarkable, but almost unprecedented. It would be difficult to find a
man in the United States who can, on the instant, without reference to
book or note, give so many facts and statistics relating to the social
and political history of our country. This has been the study of his
life, and his memory is truly encyclopaedic.

Mr. Blaine was not a poor man when he entered Congress in 1863, and he
is not a millionaire now. For twenty years he has owned a valuable coal
tract of several hundred acres near Pittsburgh. This yielded him a
handsome income before he entered Congress, and the investment has been
a profitable one during his public life. He is said to have speculated
more or less, and to have made and lost millions. Yet in general his
business affairs have been managed with prudence and shrewdness, and he
now has a handsome fortune. His home in Augusta, near the State House,
is a plain two-story house. Several institutions in the State have
received benefactions from him, and his charity and generosity are
appreciated at home. He is a member of the Congregational Church in
Augusta, and constant attendance at divine service is a practice that he
has always inculcated upon his family. He has constantly refused to take
religious matters into politics, but his respect for his mother's belief
has made him tolerant and charitable toward all sects. In his own house
he is a man of culture and refinement, a genial host, a courteous
gentlemen. No man in public life is more fortunate in his domestic
relations. He is the companion and confidant of every one of his six
children, and they fear him no more than they fear one of their own
number. Mrs. Blaine is a model wife and mother. The eldest son, Walker
Blaine, is a graduate of Yale College and of the Law School of Columbia
College. He is a member of the bar of se