WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 205 
bird sings — for his own pleasure. But I 
was pleased, too. His was an amiable en- 
thusiasm, quite exempt, as it seemed, from 
all that bitterness, which an exclusive pos- 
session of the truth so commonly engenders. 
He was greatly in earnest; he knew he was 
right ; but he could still see the comical side 
of things; he still had a sense of the ludi- 
crous ; and in that lay his salvation. For a 
sense of the ludicrous is the best of mental 
antiseptics; it, if anything, will keep our 
perishable human nature sweet, and save 
it from the madhouse. His discourse was 
punctuated throughout with quiet laughter. 
Thus, when he said, “ Z call it the late Re- 
publican party,” it was with a chuckle so 
good-natured, so free from acidity and self- 
conceit, that only a pretty stiff partisan 
could have taken offense. Even his predic- 
tions of impending national ruin were deliv- 
ered with numberless merry quips and 
twinkles. Many good Republicans and 
good Democrats (the adjective is used in its 
political sense) might have envied him his 
sunny temper, joined, as it was, to a good 
stock of native shrewdness. For something 
in his eye made it plain that, with all his 
