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Chapter 84: Mr. Davis's characteristics.
Like most people of keen perceptions, incisive wit, and high ideal standards,
Mr. Davis was inclined to satire, and in his younger days indulged this propensity, never cruelly, but often to his own injury.
His sense of the ludicrous was intense, his powers of observation were close, and his memory was phenomenal.
He seldom forgot a face, name, or circumstance.
If he travelled over a country once, he knew the topography of that part which he traversed, the trees that indicated the character of the soil, noted the grasses indigenous there, observed the kinds of domestic stock preferred, the general characteristics of the people, their occupations, their sources of wealth, and even their means of water-supply.
With a mind ever alert and discriminating, he took to himself, never to be relinquished, all that nature and art spread out before him.
Always delicately soigne in his own person, he observed the lack of neatness in others, and was prone to see in it an indication of mental
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characteristics.
Once when describing a poor man who came to him for a loan, he said, “He was miserably poor, but his threadbare coat was brushed and his copperas linsey trousers and his horny hands were clean, so I gave him the money.”
Mr. Davis observed the dress of ladies very closely, but could not describe one which displeased him except by saying, “It was very high-colored, outsetting, and full of tags, and you could see her afar off,” by which he meant there were flying ribbons, and she had a “loud” expression.
There were few more shrewd judges of character than he, but he was apt to be misled by some of the qualities he admired and infer the rest, and was thus sometimes mistaken in his judgment.
He was himself so consistent that he could not understand the incongruities of others.
If he found a man sincere in one thing, or the opposite, it was impossible for him to believe that, swayed by a powerful motive, the reverse action could be adopted without all he attributed to him being forfeited; consequently, after every defection of a friend he suffered keenly.
Faithful in his lightest profession of regard, and retentive of his friendships, he was deeply wounded by the duplicity of those he had trusted — not expressedly bitter, for pride and reticence, both of which were unusually developed in him, prevented his
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asking for sympathy by showing his woundbut some keen satire, or general reflection upon the faithlessness of men, would attest his discovery, or the remark, “All men are not built like martyrs,” would show his contempt.
He noticed every shade of expression that passed athwart the faces of those with whom he held intercourse.
Once, when a general came to him to set forth his superior officer's mistakes, and ended his long story with, “It is only a matter of patriotic interest, of course there is nothing personal to me involved,” he was bowed out civilly and
Mr. Davis said: “He came to ask for General--‘s place.”
On my expressing astonishment, he laughed and answered, “I do not mean that he said so, only he seemed to be too full of expedients to gain a victory, and to suffer too much over the
General's neglect of his opportunities.”
In a few days a newspaper contained the criticism
Mr. Davis had listened to, with a suggestion of the name of the critic to fill the place not likely to be vacant.
No young man ever came to him with a tale of injustice, or sorrowful experience, without finding a sympathetic listener and, while he had the means, a liberal contributor to necessities which had been implied or stated,
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It was a rule of his house that no one should be turned away hungry, however undeserving or unattractive.
A child's cry of pain would make him quiver from head to foot.
A tear on the cheek of one in his house, or a downcast look, caused him to inquire into the trouble, and sometimes his attempts to do justice were embarrassing enough.
On the following page will be found the back of a letter asking for assistance, the endorsement on which he never expected to meet any eye but his own.
Sometimes, when he was reading his mail I heard a groan and a muttered exclamation, “Poor creature, and my hands are tied!”
It was always some appeal for help over which he was distressing himself.
He was excitable, but not petulant, easily persuaded where to yield did not involve a principle, and was more stern toward himself than to any other.
His methods of showing sympathy were sometimes eccentric.
Once in the street, a gentleman beggar asked him for the twentieth time for twenty-five cents. He took his arm and walked a square, remonstrating in this wise: “It mortifies me to see you lowered in this way. I will give you five dollars, and you can let me off with twenty applications, and feel more comfortable.”
To his family he was niggardly in nothing,
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but his personal self-denial was unusual; keenly alive to the pleasures of luxury, he
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denied himself all that our love permitted him to relinquish.
He rarely made known a personal want.
His piety was of the kind that vaunts not itself, but was the rule of his life.
He forbore with those beneath him until patience ceased to be a virtue ; but with his equals he asserted and enforced his rights.
He was extremely reticent, always saying less than he thought, but was careful to convey the exact truth in the little he expressed.
He was courteous in the extreme to everyone, and his servants used commonly to express their appreciation of this by saying he was “a very fine gentleman.”
In portraying the character of
Mr. Davis it is difficult to place a just estimate upon his noble qualities without appearing rather as a panegyrist than a witness.
Forty-three years of intimate companionship, from the beginning of his political career until the end, left me with the profoundest respect for his unswerving mental and moral integrity, his stanch adherence to principle, his self-immolating devotion to duty, his calm, invincible courage, his wide sympathy with mankind, and his unfeigned reverence for his Creator.
In the greatest effort of his life,
Mr. Davis failed from the predominance of some of these noble qualities.
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Mrs. Mary A. Greer, of
Mississippi, explained the causes of his failure in the following noble lines:
He failed because he was so great; his duty
Lay in Presidency, not Dictatorship.
And he was one that would not enter Paradise
By treachery, fraud, and usurpation.
He held his lightest promise as a sacred thing,
How much more his oath of office sworn.
The law had circumscribed and set his bounds,
The law he'd sworn to keep he would not break.
He had within him strength to cope with all
The fearful issues of the time, the stern volition,
Steadfast purpose, and the ceaseless watch;
Strength to gather up the scattered slender means,
To bind, to weld, to rivet firm in one,
And name the force so formed success.
All this within him lay, but power to do
This was withheld, and power not freely
Given he scorned to rudely seize.
Patient sorrowing, much enduring soul,
God strengthen thee ; in all his strength,
Christ comfort thee ; in all his love,
Angels tend thee ; in all thy ways
Nobly thou hast wrought and overcome.
His foresight showed him the risks of se, cession, and his sincerity bade him proclaim them, while his courage urged him to attempt resistance to wrong against the world in arms, and his piety held out the hope that God would miraculously shield us. He cheerfully resigned everything and asserted a principle which, however it may now be derided, he knew was vital to the liberties of mankind.
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No man doubted then that his election to the office of
President of the
United States would be the swift reward of his proving recreant to the interests of his own people; but he sacrificed the labors and ambitions of his life to the maintenance of his faith.
His family who survive him were engulfed in the common disaster and utter ruin, but are proud of his record, and hopefully await the verdict of posterity.
