But this campaign of 1884 ended as I had expected. Mr. Cleveland was elected to the Presidency. CHAPTER XIII HENDRICKS, JOHN SHERMAN, BANCROFT, AND OTHERS--1884-1891 The following spring, visiting Washington, I met President Cleveland again. Of the favorable impression made upon me by his career as Governor of New York I have already spoken, and shall have occasion to speak presently of his Presidency. The renewal of our acquaintance even increased my respect for him. He was evidently a strong, honest man, trying to do his duty under difficulties. I also met again Mr. Cleveland's opponent in the previous campaign--Mr. Blaine. Calling on Mr. William Walter Phelps, then in Congress, whom I had known as minister of the United States at Vienna, and who was afterward my successor at Berlin, I made some reference to Mr. Blaine, when Mr. Phelps said: ``Why don't you go and call upon him?'' I answered that it might be embarrassing to both of us, to which he replied: ``I don't think so. In spite of your opposition to him at Chicago, were I in your place I would certainly go to his house and call upon him.'' That afternoon I took this advice, and when I returned to the hotel Mr. Blaine came with me, talking in a most interesting way. He spoke of my proposed journey to Virginia, and discussed Jefferson and Hamilton, admiring both, but Jefferson the most. As to his own working habits, he said that he rose early, did his main work in the morning, and never did any work in the evening; that, having been brought up in strongly Sabbatarian notions during his boyhood in Pennsylvania, he had ever since, from the force of habit, reserved Sunday as a day of complete rest. Speaking of the customs in Pennsylvania at that time, he said that not even a walk for exercise was allowed, and nothing was ever cooked on the sacred day. I met him afterward on various occasions, and could not but admire him. At a dinner-party he was vexatiously badgered by a very bumptious professor, who allowed himself to speak in a rather offensive manner of ideas which Mr. Blaine represented; and the quiet but decisive way in which the latter disposed of his pestering interlocutor was worthy of all praise. Mr. Blaine was certainly the most fascinating man I have ever known in politics. No wonder that so many Republicans in all parts of the country seemed ready to give their lives to elect him. The only other public man in the United States whose personality had ever elicited such sympathy and devotion was Henry Clay. Perhaps his nearest friend was Mr. Phelps, to whom I have referred above,--one of the best, truest, and most winning men I have ever known. He had been especially devoted to Mr. Blaine, with whom he had served in Congress, and it was understood that if the latter had been elected Mr. Phelps would have been his Secretary of State.