“It is clear he could not do the work he does if he went into society like other men. He did, however, one evening.... The moment I went in, intimations reached me from all quarters, amid nods and winks, ‘Kendall is here,’ ‘There he is.’ I saw at once that his plea for seclusion (bad health) is no false one. The extreme sallowness of his complexion, the hair of such perfect whiteness as is rarely seen in a man of middle age, testified to his disease.[347] His countenance does not help the superstitious to throw off their dread of him. He probably does not desire this superstition to melt away, for there is no calculating how much influence is given the Jackson Administration by the universal belief that there is a concealed eye and hand behind the machinery of Government, by which everything could be foreseen, and the hardest deeds done. A member of Congress told me this night that he had watched through five sessions for a sight of Kendall, and had never obtained one until now. Kendall was leaning on a chair, his head bent down, and eyes glancing up at a member of Congress with whom he was in earnest conversation, and in a moment he was gone.”[348] Such was the cleverest, most audacious, and powerful member of the Kitchen Cabinet--a man who made history that historians have written and ascribed to others who merely uttered the words or registered the will of this indomitable journalist and politician. II When Jackson left the Hermitage, he was accompanied by Major William B. Lewis, who had been intimately identified with his campaign for the Presidency. This unobtrusive man found lodgment with his chief at Gadsby’s, where he interested himself in analyzing the characters of office-seekers for the guidance of his friend. After walking with Jackson from the hotel to the Capitol, and seeing him inducted into office, he announced his plan to return to the quiet life of Tennessee. “Why, Major,” exclaimed the astonished Jackson, “you are not going to leave me here alone, after doing more than any other man to bring me here!”