"His character is aptly described in the words of England's great laureate--written thirty years ago--in which he traces the upward steps of some
'Divinely gifted man, Whose life in low estate began, And on a simple village green;
'Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blow of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star;
'Who makes by force his merit known, And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty State's decrees. And shape the whisper of the throne;
'And moving up from high to higher, Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope, The pillar of a people's hope, The centre of a world's desire.'
"Such a life and character will be treasured forever as the sacred possession of the American people and of mankind."
Again, in Garfield's eulogy upon Senator Morton of Indiana, how truly the words apply to himself:--
"His force of will was most masterful. It was not mere stubbornness, or pride of opinion, which weak and narrow men mistake for firmness. But it was that stout-hearted persistency which, having once intelligently chosen an object, pursues it through sunshine and storm, undaunted by difficulties, and unterrified by danger.
"He possessed an intellect of remarkable clearness and force. With keen analysis he found the core of a question, and worked from the centre outward.... Few men have been so greatly endowed with the power of clear statement and unassailable argument. The path of his thought was straight,--
'Like that of the swift cannon-ball Shattering that it may reach, and Shattering what it reaches."
"When he had hit the mark, he used no additional words, and sought for no decoration. These qualities, joined to his power of thinking quickly, placed him in the front rank of debaters, and every year increased his power."
One of Garfield's most popular eulogies was that upon John Winthrop and Samuel Adams, from which we quote the following striking passages:--
"It must not be forgotten that while Samuel Adams was writing the great argument of liberty in Boston, almost at the same time Patrick Henry was formulating the same doctrines in Virginia. It is one of the grandest facts of that grand time that the colonies were thus brought, by an almost universal consent, to tread the same pathway, and reach the same great conclusions.