Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/352

HOW TO GET STRONG

tutional Convention at thirty-three; refused Attorney-Generalship and Foreign Missions from Adams; Minister to France at forty-one; Member of Congress at forty-four; Secretary of War and State under Adams; made Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court at forty-six, and held the position thirty-four years, till his death. "His best biography is his decisions. Their most striking characteristics," says Mr. Justice Bradley, of that Bench, "are crystalline clearness of thought, irrefragable logic, and a wide, statesman-like view of all questions of public consequence." "I have never seen a man," says Webster, "of whose intellect I had a higher opinion."

"He was about six feet high, straight and rather slender, of dark complexion—showing little, if any, rosy red, yet of good health, the outline of the face nearly a circle, and within that eyes dark to blackness, strong and penetrating, beaming with intelligence and good-nature; an upright forehead, rather low, was terminated in a horizontal line by a mass of raven-black hair of unusual thickness and strength.

"The features of the face were in harmony with this outline, and the temples fully developed. The result of this combination was interesting and very agreeable. The body and limbs indicated agility rather than strength, in which, however, he was by no means deficient. Never did man possess a temper more happy, or if otherwise, more subdued or better disciplined.

"Such is the life-like picture which a contemporary and kinsman has left of the Chief Justice as he appeared upon the threshold of early manhood. One cannot help being struck with its truthfulness and simplicity;—a walk of ten miles from Oak Hill in a blue hunting-shirt and Bucktail cockade—a frank, friendly, and hearty greeting with his comrades—a drill in the 'manual exercise'—a familiar talk about the war; foot-races, and a game of quoits at which 'there was no betting,' make

306