his country, and to you, and to your illustrious associates
in the field and in the cabinet, for the multiplied
blessings which surround us, and for the very privilege of
addressing you which I now exercise. This sentiment, now
fondly cherished by more than ten millions of people, will
be transmitted with unabated vigor down the tide of time,
through the countless millions who are destined to inhabit
this continent, to the latest posterity."

The appropriateness of these sentiments to the occasion and to the man
is evident to every one who remembers that Lafayette's love of George
Washington was a Frenchman's romantic passion. Nor, indeed, did he
need to have a sensitive French heart to be moved to tears by such
words and such a welcome.

From 1822 to 1848, a period of twenty-six years, Henry Clay lived the
strange life of a candidate for the Presidency. It was enough to ruin
any man, body and soul. To live always in the gaze of millions; to be
the object of eulogy the most extravagant and incessant from one half
of the newspapers, and of vituperation still more preposterous from
the other half; to be surrounded by flatterers interested and
disinterested, and to be confronted by another body intent on
misrepresenting every act and word; to have to stop and consider the
effect of every utterance, public and private, upon the next
"campaign"; not to be able to stir abroad without having to harangue a
deputation of political friends, and stand to be kissed by ladies and
pump-handled by men, and hide the enormous bore of it beneath a fixed
smile till the very muscles of the face are rigid; to receive by every
mail letters enough for a large town; to have your life written
several times a year; to be obliged continually to refute calumnies