“We naturally expect to find strong traces of time in the form of those with whose names and deeds we have been long acquainted, of those who had obtained the suffrages of the world, almost before we had entered it. But, on the person of La Fayette, time has left no impression; not a wrinkle furrows the ample brow; and his unbent and noble figure is still as upright, bold, and vigorous as the mind that informs it. Grace, strength, and dignity still distinguish the fine person of this extraordinary man; who, though more than forty years before the world, engaged in scenes of strange and eventful conflict, does not yet appear to have reached his climacteric. “Bustling and active in his farm, graceful and elegant in his _salon_, it is difficult to trace, in one of the most successful agriculturists, and one of the most perfectly fine gentlemen that France has produced, a warrior and a legislator. The patriot, however, is always discernible. “In the full possession of every faculty and talent he ever possessed, the memory of M. La Fayette has all the tenacity of unworn youthful recollections; and, besides these, high views of all that is most elevated in the mind’s conception. His conversation is brilliantly enriched with anecdotes of all that is celebrated, in character and event, for the last fifty years. He still talks with unwearied delight of his short visit to England, to his friend Mr. Fox, and dwelt on the witchery of the late Duchess of Devonshire with almost boyish enthusiasm. He speaks and writes English with the same elegance he does his native tongue. He has made himself master of all that is best worth knowing in English literature and philosophy. “I observed that his library contained many of our most eminent authors upon all subjects. His elegant and well-chosen collection of books occupies the highest apartments in one of the towers of the château; and, like the study of Montaigne, hangs over the farm-yard of the philosophical agriculturist. ‘It frequently happens,’ said M. La Fayette, as we were looking out of the window at some flocks which were moving beneath, ‘it frequently happens that my merinos and my hay carts dispute my attention with your Hume or our own Voltaire.’ “He spoke with great pleasure of the visit paid him at La Grange some years ago by Mr. Fox and General Fitzpatrick. He took me out, the morning after my arrival, to show me a tower richly covered with ivy. ‘It was Mr. Fox,’ he said, ‘who planted that ivy! I have taught my children to venerate it.’