me out mornings to his farm, which was so located that it could
command a fine view of the Mohawk Valley. After the inspection
of the stock, the crops, and buildings, the governor would spend
the day discoursing eloquently and most optimistically upon
the prosperity possible for the farmer. To his mind then the food
of the future was to be cheese. There was more food value
in cheese than in any known edible article, animal or vegetable.
It could sustain life more agreeably and do more for Iongevity
and health.

No one could have imagined, who did not know the governor and
was privileged to listen to his seemingly most practical and
highly imaginative discourse, that the speaker was one of the
ablest party managers, shrewdest of politicians, and most eloquent
advocates in the country, whose whole time and mind apparently
were absorbed in the success of his party and the fruition of
his own ambitions.

As we were returning home he said to me: "You have risen higher
than any young man in the country of your age. You have a talent
and taste for public life, but let me advise you to drop it and
devote yourself to your profession. Public life is full of
disappointments, has an unusual share of ingratitude, and its
compensations are not equal to its failures. The country is full
of men who have made brilliant careers in the public service and
then been suddenly dropped and forgotten. The number of such men
who have climbed the hill up State Street to the capitol in Albany,
with the applause of admiring crowds whom none now can recall,
would make a great army."