ch were links in the chain of his memories, I
well remember.

"Is old papa Jack and Bellile living?" he asked, after a pause, of my
wife, accompanied with a look of eager anxiety.

These were two old Africans, faithful servants of her father; and then
there was an anecdote of each of them--their remarks or their conduct
upon some hunting or fishing excursion, in which he had participated
forty years before.

I was an interested spectator in the presence of one of nature's
wonderful creations--one who had made, and who was making, history for
his country, and whose name was to descend to future times as one of
her noblest sons and greatest historical characters. I watched every
motion of his lips, every expression of his features, and every gleam
of his great gray eyes, and I could but wonder at the child-like
naturalness of everything about him. Is not this an attribute of
greatness--to be natural? Yes; to be natural in all things belongs to
truth, and a truthful exhibition of nature, without assumption or
deceit, is greatness. Here was one who could, with natural simplicity,
amuse a child; and the same one could command and successfully wield a
great army, and, with equal success, direct the destinies of a great
nation; whose genius was tempered with simplicity and tenderness, and
when towering most in its grandeur, was most truthful to nature.

General Jackson's early opportunities were extremely limited. His
education was so very defective, that his orthography was almost
ludicrous, and his general reading amounted to almost nothing. At no
time was he a respectable county-court lawyer, so far as legal learning
was concerned, and it is wonderful how the natural vigor of his mind
supplied this defect. On the bench, his greatest aim was to get at the
facts in every case, and to decide all points upon the broad principles
of equity; and in all his charges to the jury, his principal aim was to
direct their attention to the simple justice of the case, and a
favorite phrase of his in these charges was: "Do right between the
parties, and you will serve the objects of the law."

He was an enemy to all unnecessary forms in all matters. His manner was
to go directly to the kernel, and he was very indifferent as to how the
shell was cracked, or the husk removed. He never seemed to reason. Upon
the presentation of any subject to his mind, it seemed, with electrical
velocity, to cut through to a conclusion as if by intuition.