THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
and remarkably intelligent part, soon turned upon politics, and that conversation was continued during a large part of the forenoon in the Governor's library. I had conceived a very profound respect for Mr. Chase's ability as well as his character. All his speeches on the slavery question were well known to me, and I greatly admired their argumentative lucidity and strength, and no less the noble elevation of sentiment pervading them. His personality, too, when I saw him on the floor of the Senate from the gallery a few years before, had impressed me powerfully. More than anyone else he looked the great man. And now, when I sat with him in the confidential atmosphere of his den, and he asked me to give him my view of the political situation, I felt as if a great distinction had been conferred upon me, and, at the same time, a responsibility which I was not altogether eager to take. His bearing in public gave Chase the appearance of a somewhat cold, haughty, and distant man. Without the least affectation or desire to pose, he was apt to be superbly statuesque. But when in friendly intercourse he opened himself, the real warmth of his nature broke through the icy crust, and one received the impression that his usual reticence arose rather from something like bashful shyness than from a haughty sense of superiority. His dignity of deportment never left him even in his unbending moods, for it was perfectly natural and unconscious. It really belonged to him like the majestic figure that nature had given him. There was something very captivating in the grand simplicity of his character as it revealed itself in his confidences when he imparted them with that almost childlike little lisp in his deep voice, and I can well understand how intimate friends could conceive a sentimental affection for him and preserve it through the changes of time, even when occasionally they ceased to approve his course.
[ 170 ]
