“Mr. Burlingame came on Friday evening, about six o’clock, in company with a gentleman and lady from Philadelphia. He had not before seen Mr. Sumner since the Brooks challenge, and we all sat together until after eleven o’clock,--there was so much to be told, and said, and explained. Without any personal resemblance, these two appeared together like father and son; but I could give no idea of their interview, even so much of it as the sacredness of private conversation would permit to be made public, in less than a column, and Mr. Sumner crowds everything from my thoughts just now. When his friends left, he had no disposition to retire, and when he did, slept but one hour. … “Those mistaken friends of his who would fain see Brooks killed or maimed would greatly distress him, if any such killing or maiming were done by their agency. He shudders at the thought that Burlingame might have shot him, and appears to feel about as much resentment against him as I should feel toward a tile which had fallen upon my head. I could not discern the slightest symptom of chagrin or mortification,--no sense of the dishonor which so many attach to the blow unrevenged. “I asked him if he would have defended himself, if it had been possible? “‘Most certainly,’ was the prompt reply, ‘to the best of my ability, and the last extremity.’ “To Dr. Jackson’s suggestion, that the same principle which permitted him to defend himself, when attacked, should induce him to punish the offence, he promptly explained the difference between self-defence and revenge. He appears to have no idea, however remote, of personal enmity in the matter,--but if he was only able to deliver one more speech! His brain is throbbing with pent thunderbolts,--and if he could only get into the citadel of his foes, and hurl them hissing into their faces! Kansas, Kansas and her wrongs, if he could but fight her battles! He does not appear as if he knew how to be afraid, or could learn, if he tried for a lifetime. There is a lion look about him, and a courage which could not stoop to assault so frail a thing as a human body.” A correspondent of the _Springfield Republican_, after describing a visit to Mr. Sumner, reports, under date of February 8, 1857:-- “I ventured after a time to speak to him of the outrage from whose effects came this sad weakness, and to express a wonder which I have always felt that serious commotions did not follow it. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘It was little, in comparison with daily occurrences. The poorest slave is in danger of worse outrages every moment of his life.’” A correspondent of the _Boston Traveller_ reports, under date of February 20, 1858:--