ike a man just going to sleep, and finally said: "I will see
you on the subject on a future occasion." The committee withdrew. In one
moment he resumed the conversation with the brilliancy and vivacity of a
boy. Subsequently the chairman of the committee said to the leading
Republican, whom he also knew: "Did you ever see the old man so nearly
gone as he was to-day? Does he often get so? Had he been taking a drop
too much?"

He was at no time in his career embarrassed in his intellectual
operations by his emotional nature; he was a man of immense brain-power,
and his intellect was trained up to the last possibility; every faculty
was under his control; until his health failed he knew no such other
source of joy as WORK.

Craft had a very important place in his composition, but it was not the
craft of the fox; it was a species of craft which at its worst was above
mere pettifogging, and at its best was unquestionably a high type of
diplomacy. Those mistake who considered him only as a cunning man. A
person opposed to him in politics, but who made a study of his career,
observed that in power of intellect he had no superior at the bar of New
York, nor among the statesmen of the whole country. The supreme crisis
of his life was when he believed himself elected President of the United
States. The political aspect we will not revive, except to say that Mr.
Tilden consented to the peculiar method of determining the case. The
departure of David Davis from the supreme bench in all human probability
determined the result.

It is known that Abram S. Hewitt, David Dudley Field, and eminent
Democratic leaders, Hewitt being chairman of the National Democratic
committee at the time, did all in their power to induce Mr. Tilden to
issue a letter to the American people saying that he believed himself to
be the President elect, and that on the fourth day of March 1877, he
would come to Washington to be inaugurated. Had that been done God alone
can tell what would have been the result. In all probability a _coup
d'etat_ on one side or the other, followed by civil war or practical
change in the character of the relations of the people to the Federal
Government. At that moment Mr. Tilden's habit of balancing caused him
to pursue the course that he did. It is reported that Mr. Tilden's
letter explaining to Mr. Hewitt the reason why he would not do so is
still in existence. Of this we know nothing; but that he had reasons and
assigned them