His devotion to
his wife, to his friends, to his duty, was always conspicuous; and
these are admired and honored, even by him who never had in his heart a
feeling in common with one of these. All these traits were so striking
in Jackson's character as to make them conspicuous. They were more
marked in his than in that of any other man of his day, because the
impulses of his temperament were more prompt and potent. They were
natural to him, and always naturally displayed. There was neither
assumption of feeling nor deceit in its manifestation; all he evinced,
bubbled up from his heart, naturally and purely as spring-water, and
went directly to the heart. These great and ennobling traits were not
unfrequently marred by passion, and acts which threw a cloud over their
brilliancy; but this, too, was natural: the same soul which was parent
to this violence and extravagance of passion, was, too, the source of
all his virtues, and all were equally in excess. The consequence of
this violence were sometimes terrible. They were evanescent, and, like
a thunder-storm, seemed only to clear the atmosphere for the display of
beautiful weather.
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