Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/115

Rh pugnacious spirit of contention; precise in his ways; stiff and cold in manners; tenacious of his opinions; irritable of temper; inclined to be suspicious, and harsh in his judgments of others, and, in the Puritan spirit, also severe with himself; one of the men who keep diaries, and in them regular accounts of their own as well as other people's doings. Two days after the commissioners had all arrived at Ghent, he wrote in his journal: —

“I dined again at the table d'hôte at one. The other gentlemen dined together at four. They sit after dinner, and drink bad wine and smoke cigars, which neither suits my habits nor my health, and absorbs time which I can ill spare. I find it impossible, even with the most rigorous economy of time, to do half the writing that I ought.”

He had been a Federalist, but his patriotic soul had taken fire at the injuries and insults his country had suffered from Great Britain. For this reason he had broken with his party, exposed himself to the ill-will of his neighbors, and supported Jefferson's and Madison's administrations in their measures of resistance to British pretensions.

Clay was ten years younger than Adams, certainly no less enthusiastic an American patriot, nor less spirited, impulsive, and hot-tempered; having already acquired something of that imperiousness of manner which, later in his career, was so much noticed; quick in forming opinions, and impatient of opposition, but warm-hearted and genial; no Puritan at all in his ways; rather in-