This power of abstraction and of application is well worth noting,
for not only was it remarkable in a boy, but, as we shall see
hereafter, it had much to do with the making of the soldier.

At West Point Jackson was troubled with the return of the obscure
complaint which had already threatened him, and he there began that
rigid observance of the laws of health which afterwards developed to
almost an eccentricity. His peculiar attitude when studying was due
to the fear that if he bent over his work the compression of his
internal organs might increase their tendency to disease.

And not only did he lay down rules for his physical regimen. A book
of maxims which he drew up at West Point has been preserved, and we
learn that his scrupulous exactness, his punctilious courtesy, and
his choice of companions were the outcome of much deliberation.

Nothing in this curious volume occurs to show that his thoughts had
yet been turned to religion. It is as free from all reference to the
teachings of Christianity as the maxims of Marcus Aurelius.

Every line there written shows that at this period of Jackson's life
devotion to duty was his guiding rule; and, notwithstanding his
remarkable freedom from egotism, the traces of an engrossing ambition
and of absolute self-dependence are everywhere apparent. Many of the
sentiments he would have repudiated in after-life as inconsistent
with humility; but there can be no question that it was a strong and
fearless hand that penned on a conspicuous page the sentence: "You
can be what you resolve to be."