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It was this which made him so patient with those who differed from him, this which made him so genuinely humble and modest. He reasoned to his conclusions and acted on them. But others had their own conclusions and must act on them. Oddly enough this very intellectual tendency which made him modest made him vain; as we have exactly the same tendencies exhibited in Cicero, as confirmed an intellectualist as ever lived, and placed in times and situations quite similar to Stephens's. To a man like Cicero it is equally natural to admit that his opponent may be right and to feel that his opponent and everybody else should recognize the simple fact of Cicero's own power and achievement. In Stephens the vanity is, of course, in no way so colossal as Cicero's, though at times it finds an expression curiously like that of the Roman orator: "I made a speech on Wednesday in Sparta. I produced I was told a powerful effect. Many said it was the greatest speech I ever made. This I say to you though but to few would I so express myself";36 which reminds one of Professor Phillips's characterization, "A chronic magnifier of his own importance." 37 But the allowance for possible error in his reasoning is as large and fine in Stephens as ever in any man. "It may be that if the course which I thought would or could then save it [the Confederate Government] , or would or could have saved it at any time, had been adopted, it would have come as far short of success as the one which was pursued; and it may be, that the