But what a treat it must have been to hear Patrick Henry speak. The small dishonesties of rhetoric he scorned. To its greatest opportunities, however, he strode with a master’s step and might. His long, sallow features then glowed, the stern lines melted into an illuminating intellectual beauty, his crooked figure, a moment before like a telescope placed on end and sliding by sections into itself, then stretched out and up into manliest exaltation, and erect, grandiose dignity. His keen words, like the battle-axe of the Douglas, cleaved the subject from head to chine. His large natural thoughts rushed up the summits of argument, as the free winds sweep the hills, without labor or effort, and shook all brains, wise or unwise, dull or quick, cultured or untutored, bending their tops before his resistless march, and shaking all their obstinate roots by his relentless grasp. No grander storm of logic, invective, irony, wit, humor, sharp demonstration, soul-rousing appeal, or tender pathos ever passed over an audience and stirred them from the deep depths of their nature than that which he awoke. No class interests, like those of the Virginia parsons for their tobacco tithes, no selfish isolations, like the petty claims of neighborhood squires, no encroachments on popular rights, like the Stamp Act or tea duties, could withstand the noble sweep of his eloquence. The tribune of the people, he was regarded, ere he had reached his thirty-fifth year, as without exception the greatest orator in America, if not in the world. On the opposite page is the photograph of a dear visitor to our family, GENERAL LAFAYETTE. We never cared to inquire whether he was a relation or not. He was just as good to us as an own brother. He first came to see us when we were poor and needed friends. He had great difficulty in reaching us, as his own government gave orders to stop him. His young bride, equally noble in her nature, encouraged his coming. He was obliged to escape from France into Spain, and in a Spanish port to take passage in a Spanish ship, the only cargo of any value, except that made up of Columbus and his one hundred and twenty men from Palos in 1492, that ever came to us from the land of the Cid. The spirited young marquis remained with us from 1777 to 1781, fighting among our bravest, suffering privations with the most patriotic, confided in and beloved by Washington and the best of the Revolution. He made us two visits after the war, once in 1784, and the second time just forty years later, upon a special invitation of the nation. Proud and glad were we all to see him. The most wonderful part of the story is, that, after enduring vigorous hand-shaking through each of our then twenty-four States, and kissing all the children from two years old and upwards, he survived the job ten years.