158 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
he had become something — not enough — never enough — the record of work he did is, for an invalid, quite in- expHcable ; or rather, it fully explains the invalidism. " I rise and breakfast at eight ; then commence with my mail. Frequently I do not get half through that before I am bored almost to death with calls on business of all sorts ; then to the Committee at ten ; then to the House at twelve ; then to dinner at four ; then calls before I leave the table till twelve at night. Then I take up and get through my unfinished reading of letters and news- papers of the morning; and then at one o'clock get to bed. I now have about one hundred letters before me unanswered." ^^
This petulance, this vivacity, this mad energy of living in a frame half dead remind one constantly of Voltaire, who, with his litde, weak, and shattered body, went on for fifty years, making enemies and smashing them, puncturing social rottenness with his fierce wit, blasting others' great lies and telling petty lies of his own, some- times pitiable, sometimes malignant, often fascinating, but always, always splendidly alive. Stephens made few enemies, told no lies, was neither pitiable nor malignant ; but he was splendidly alive until the cof^n-lid put out the torch that seemed to have exhausted its fuel long before.
But though Voltaire had plenty of physical ills, I find no evidence that he suffered from melancholy or mental depression. Stephens did. The jar of over-tense nerves
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