And then he actually gives a full translation of the poem: “To the Ship which carried Virgil to Athens.” At the close, he naively says: “I can better most of the verses.” Every peep of his private life has an exquisite charm. It perpetually surprises one with its frankness, its simplicity, and artless affection. In Homer’s _Iliad_, the great Hector, clad in dazzling armor and helmet, stoops to kiss his child before going forth to mortal combat. But the child drew back, afraid of his strange and terrible aspect. Swiftly the father removed the panoply of war, and then stooped to the child to be received with outstretched arms. In the fierce arena of debate we see Garfield clad with the stern helmet and buckler of battle. But in his private life he laid aside the armor, and stood forth in all the beauty of a grand, simple, and affectionate nature. During the period covered by this chapter his home remained at Hiram, Ohio, where he spent his vacations from Congress. Here he lived in a very modest manner, keeping neither carriage nor horse, and borrowing or hiring when he desired to be conveyed to the railroad station, four miles off. Mr. Frederick E. Warren, an attorney of Cincinnati, Ohio, was a student at Hiram College from 1869 to 1875. During this time he became acquainted with General Garfield. Of his impressions and acquaintance he furnishes a vivacious narrative. He says: “General Garfield’s return home was always an event with the college boys, by whom he was greatly admired and beloved. My earliest impressions of him, as he came one morning striding up the old plank walk that stretched across the college campus, realized all that I had heard spoken of him as to his appearance and bearing. Even God had seemed to set his seal upon him, ‘to give the world assurance of a _man_.’ Subsequent acquaintance merely ripened this impression. None of us required a formal introduction to him. The boys and he instinctively knew each other. He took the stranger cordially by the hand, gave him a kindly and encouraging word, and made him feel at once that he was his _friend_, and you may rest assured that the boy was forever _his_. “We learned much from the General’s ‘talks,’ as he styled them. Whenever at home, he regularly attended the chapel exercises each morning. As soon as the religious services were concluded, he invariably was called upon to say something; to give us a ‘talk.’ He never failed to respond. His remarks were usually brief, but delightfully instructive, and there was a freshness and novelty which characterized them that I have never met with in any other public speaker or teacher.