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toilsome marches and stubborn battles; its perorations were the thunder-claps of defeat hurled upon the enemies of his country.
It revealed itself only through the purity and force of his action; and thence, in part, the intensity of the impression.
This aids to explain the enigma of his reputation.
How is it that this man, of all others least accustomed to exercise his own fancy, or address that of others, has stimulated the imagination, not only of his own countrymen, but of the civilized world, above all the sons of genius among us?
How has he, the most unromantic of great men, become the hero of a living romance, the ideal of an inflamed fancy, even before his life has been invested with the mystery of distance?
How did that calm eye kindle the fire of so passionate a love and admiration in the heart of his people?
He was brave; but not the only brave.
He revealed transcendent military talent.; but the diadem of his country glowed with a galaxy of such talent.
He was successful; but it had more than one captain, whose banner never stooped before an enemy.
The solution is chiefly to be found in the singleness, purity, and elevation of his aims.
Every one who observed him was as thoroughly convinced of his unselfish devotion to duty, as of his courage, it was no more evident that his was a soul of perfect courage, than that no thought of personal advancement, of ambition or applause, ever for one instant divided the homage of his heart with his great cause, and that “all the ends he aimed at were his country's, his God's and truth's.”
The corrupt men, whose own patriotism was merely the mask of ambition or greedy avarice, and who had been accustomed to mock at disinterested virtue in their secret hearts, as an empty dream, when they saw the life of Jackson, had as heartfelt a conviction of his ingenuous devotion, as the noblest spirits who delighted to form their souls by the mirror of his example.
In the presence of his sincerity, the basest were as thoroughly
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