Perhaps another and yet dearer friend might exist, the partner of his daily cares, the witness of his unceasing toil; whose youthful mind, cultivated by his skill, rewards with enduring affection those efforts which called into existence her own latent and unsuspected powers. When driven by exhausted means and injured health almost to despair of the achievement of his life’s great object—when the brain itself reels beneath the weight its own ambition has imposed, and the world’s neglect aggravates the throbbings of an overtasked frame, an angel spirit sits beside his couch ministering with gentlest skill to every wish, watching with anxious thought till renovated nature shall admit of bolder counsels, then points the way to hope, herself the guardian of his deathless fame. The fool may sneer, the worldly-wise may smile, the heartless laugh,—the saint may moralize, the bigot preach: there dwells not within the deep recesses of the human heart one sentiment more powerful, more exalted, or more pure than these. That man is not a statesman, who is unaware of the strength of these powerful excitements to human action. Cold and incapable of such sentiments himself,—no grasp of intellect enables him to infer their existence, and thus to supply the deficiencies of his own, by an insight into the hearts of others. That man is a fool, not a statesman, who knowing their strength, hesitates to avail himself of it for the benefit of his country and of mankind. But if there should arise a man conscious of their power, who yet should dare to use it for the purposes of party, that man will combine in his character the not incongruous mixture of statesman and of knave. A statesman he may be, if he can penetrate into the character of men, and can divine the action of human motives upon the masses, as well as on the individuals of his race. With such knowledge, and with the talent that its possession implies, he cannot be a fool; except indeed, in as far as he is entitled to credit for that limited amount of folly which is inseparably attached to him in his other character of knave. It is _possible_ that he may be successful in his day; it is _certain_ that he will ultimately be found out and disgraced in the eyes of posterity. His name may remain a beacon for a time, until some greater or more recent knave supersedes his example, and thus consigns him to oblivion. It is not then the gaudy ribbon, the brilliant star, the titled name, that have intrinsic charms for him who dedicates his genius to the search for truth. How large a portion of his real greatness, even of his most splendid discoveries, would he not willingly sacrifice to confer on those he loves that exquisite happiness, which arises only when hidden but long-cherished convictions, entertained diffidently from the consciousness of partial affection, receive at length their final confirmation by that decision which national acknowledgment can alone command!