ate touches, which was
printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_ in 1861. Of Lafayette himself he
said:

"In person he was tall and strongly built, with broad shoulders, large
limbs, and a general air of strength.... He had more dignity of
bearing than any man I ever saw. And it was not merely the dignity of
self-possession, which early familiarity with society and early habits
of command may give even to an ordinary man, but that elevation of
manner which springs from an habitual elevation of thought, bearing
witness to the purity of its source, as a clear eye and ruddy cheek
bear witness to the purity of the air you daily breathe. In some
respects he was the mercurial Frenchman to the last day of his life;
yet his general bearing, that comes oftenest to my memory, was of calm
earnestness, tempered and mellowed by quick sympathies."

The death of Lafayette, on the 20th of May, 1834, set the bells
a-tolling in many lands, but in none was the mourning more sincere
than in our own. Members of Congress were commanded to wear the badge
of sorrow for thirty days, and thousands of the people joined them in
this outward expression of the sincere grief of their hearts.

His services to his own country and to ours were many and valuable.
But his personal example of character, integrity, and constancy was
even more to us and to the world than his distinct services. What he
_was_ endeared him to us, even more than the things he did. He gave
his whole soul in youth to his world-wide dream of freedom--freedom
under a constitution guaranteeing it, through public order, to every
human being. He found himself in a world where monarchical government
seemed the destiny and habit of mankind. He thought it a bad
habit--one that ought to be broken. Sincerely and passionately
believing this, he was willing to die in the service of any people who
were ready to make the struggle against the existing national
traditions. He made mistakes; he made the mistake of trusting Louis
Philippe. In doing this he had with him the whole French people. But
let it be said on the other hand that he did not make the mistake of
trusting Bonaparte, whose blandishments he resisted during the whole
passage of that meteor. And he was making no mistake when, to the
very end of his life, he remained true to his love for the land he had
aided in his youth. His visions did not all come true in exactly the
shape he devised, but to the last he retained a glorious confidence