walls, looking like deep recesses. In the window that looked upon the
farm-yards was the General's writing-table and seat. A spy-glass lay
within reach, enabling him to overlook the yard-work without rising from
his chair; and on the table were his farm-books, with the record of
crops and improvements entered in regular order with his own hand.
Charles Sumner, who visited La Grange last summer, tells me that they
lie there still.

The library was miscellaneous, many of the books being
presentation-copies, and most of them neatly bound. Its predominant
character, as nearly as I can recollect, was historical; the history in
which he had borne so important a part naturally coming in for a full
share. Though not a scholar from choice, General Lafayette loved books,
and was well read. His Latin had stood him in stead at Olmütz for his
brief communication with his surgeon; and I have a distinct impression,
though I cannot vouch for the correctness of it, that he never dropped
it altogether. His associations were too much among men of thought as
well as men of action, and the responsibilities that weighed upon him
were too grave, to permit so conscientious a man to neglect the aid of
books. Of the historians of our Revolution, he preferred Ramsay, who
had, as he said, put everything into his two volumes, and abridged as
well as Eutropius. It was, perhaps, the presence of something of the
same quality that led him to give the preference, among the numerous
histories of the French Revolution, to Mignet, though, in putting
him into my hands, he cautioned me against that dangerous spirit
of fatalism, which, making man the unconscious instrument of an
irresistible necessity, leaves him no real responsibility for evil or
for good.

It was in this room that he passed the greater part of the time that was