But in them his judgment never lost its anchorage. Unlike Burke, who
was the god of his political idolatry, his sensibility never
overmastered his reasoning. Through a style sometimes Eastern in
flush and fervor, and again tropical in heat and luxuriance, were
always seen the adjusting and attempering habit of thought and
argument and the even balance of his mind.
We have said that his interest in politics was a patriotic interest
in the nation. He knew her history and her triumphs and reverses on
land and sea by heart. Though limited by no narrow love of country,
he felt from sentiment and imagination that attachment to every
symbol of patriotism and national power which makes the sailor suffer
death with joy when he sees his country's flag floating in the smoke
of victory. "The radiant ensign of the Republic" was to him the
living embodiment of her honor and her power. He had for it the pride
and passion of the boy, with the prophetic hopes of the patriot. Men
of genius are ever revivifying the commonplace expressions and
visible signs of popular enthusiasm with the poetic and historic
realities which gave them birth. He felt the glow and impulse of the
great sentiments of race and nationality in all their natural
simplicity and poetic force.
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