But Stanton was in no mood for words. He was looking at the figure on the bed, the great chest heaving with the laboured but regular breath, and living again the years of colleagueship and conflict.He had been Loyal to him: yes, thank God! he had been loyal. He had quarrelled, thwarted, criticised, but he had never failed him in a crisis. He had held up his hands as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses....
The Secretary for War was not in the habit of underrating his own talents and achievements. But in that moment they seemed less than nothing. Humility shook him like a passion. Till his dying day his one boast must be that he had served that figure on the camp-bed. It had been his high fortune to have his lot cast in the vicinity of supreme genius. With awe he realised that he was looking upon the passing of the very great.... There had never been such a man.There could never be such an one again. So patient and enduring, so wise in all great matters, so potent to inspire a multitude, so secure in his own soul....Fools would chatter about his being a son of the people and his career a triumph of the average man.Average! Great God, he was a ruler of princes, a master, a compeller of men.... He could imagine what noble nonsense Sumner would talk.... He looked with disfavor at the classic face of the Bostonian.