yet full of Mr. Clay, of his enemies and disappointment, there rose
before my mind a scene such as Audubon may once have witnessed:

The light of day is dying over the forests of the upper Mississippi.
The silence of high space falls upon the vast stream. On a
thunder-blasted tree-top near the western bank sits a lone, stern
figure waiting for its lordliest prey--the eagle waiting for the swan.
Long the stillness continues among the rocks, the tree-tops, and above
the river. But far away in the north a white shape is floating nearer.
At last it comes into sight, flying heavily, for it is already weary,
being already wounded. The next moment the cry of its coming is heard
echoing onward and downward upon the silent woods. Instantly the
mighty watcher on the summit is alert and tense; and as the great snowy
image of the swan floats by, in mid-air and midway of the broad expanse
of water, he meets it. No battle is fought up there--the two are not
well matched; and thus, separated from all that is little and
struggling far above all that is low, with the daylight dying on his
spotlessness, the swan receives the blow in its heart.

So came Death to the great Commoner.


Oh, Georgiana! I do not think of Death as ever having come to you. I
think of you as some strangely beautiful white being that one day rose
out of these earthly marshes where hunts the dark Fowler, and uttering
your note of divine farewell, spread your wings towards the open sea of
eternity, there to await my coming.