that he became the most popular Federal officer (who didn't turn Mormon)
ever sent to Utah. The man who obtains ascendency over the mouths of the
authorities cannot fail ere-long to get their ears.

Brigham's manners astonish any one who knows that his only education was
a few quarters of such common-school experience as could be had in
Ontario County, Central New York, during the early part of the century.
There are few courtlier men living. His address is a fine combination of
dignity with the desire to confer happiness,--of perfect deference to
the feelings of others with absolute certainty of himself and his own
opinions. He is a remarkable example of the educating influence of
tactful perception, combined with entire singleness of aim, considered
quite apart from its moral character. His early life was passed among
the uncouth and illiterate; his daily associations, since he embraced
Mormonism, have been with the least cultivated grades of human
society,--a heterogeneous peasant-horde, looking to him for erection
into a nation: yet he has so clearly seen what is requisite in the man
who would be respected in the Presidency, and has so unreservedly
devoted his life to its attainment, that in protracted conversations
with him I heard only a single solecism, ("a'n't you" for "aren't you,")
and saw not one instance of breeding which would be inconsistent with
noble lineage.

I say all this good of him frankly, disregarding any slur that maybe
cast on me as his defender by those broad-effect artists who always
paint the Devil black,--for I think it high time that the Mormon enemies
of our American Idea should be plainly understood as far more dangerous
antagonists than hypocrites or idiots can ever hope to be. Let us not
twice commit the blunder of underrating our foes.

Brigham began our conversation at the theatre by telling me I was
late,--it was after nine o'clock. I replied, that this was the time we
usually set about dressing for an evening party in Boston or New York.

"Yes," said he, "you find us an old-fashioned people; we are trying to
return to the healthy habits of patriarchal times."

"Need you go back so far as that for your parallel?" suggested I. "It
strikes me that we might have found four-o'clock balls among the _early_
Christians."

He smiled, without that offensive affectation of some great men, the air
of taking another's joke under their gracious patronage, and went on to
remark that there