Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

Sumner's style was deliberate. He sometimes introduced topics or reflections which he thought relevant, though they bore only remotely on his argument. He drew occasionally on former speeches for materials. To the last of his life, as in his youth, what he wrote or spoke was marred by quotations from prose and poetry, sometimes extended beyond the limits of good taste. But he never rambled, never continued speaking because he did not know where to end, never spoke longer than he intended when he rose, never uttered a sentence which did not express a thought clear and important to his own mind. Any habitual reader of the debates of Congress will readily note what vices of parliamentary speaking he escaped.

While senator he had always a large correspondence, and never larger than now,—letters not only from his wide circle of personal friends, American and foreign, but from thousands whom he never saw.¹ A few he answered, but the greater number were recognized only by a copy of some speech, with an autograph frank and a memorandum of ‘thanks’ on the envelope. He delighted, as few delight, in such burdensome recognitions from correspondents, known and unknown. He was unhappy if snow or freshet kept back the postman's morning packet; and all who invaded his breakfast hour—the time when his intimate friends most sought him—recall the zest with which he opened and read letter after letter (now and then handing one to the visitor) from his miscellaneous correspondents,—Cobden, Bright, and the Duchess of Argyll; a dozen or twenty faithful friends who wrote of affairs in Massachusetts; old Abolitionists in all parts of the country, well known or obscure,—indeed, from thousands of all conditions who had thoughts and anxieties which they wished some one in Washington to share.

He was the only public man in Washington who had a European correspondence of any public value. Bright and Cobden, almost our only two friends of eminence in England, reported to him drifts of opinion important to be known by our government, and gave sincere counsels as to what it was best for us to do. The Duchess of Argyll, reflecting the views of the duke, then in the Cabinet, did the same. These letters as soon as received