" Form your notion of what must enter into the
formation of such a character, and then you have another of those
elements that make up the character of Tazewell.
Then take your model of a man who draws his sustenance from the plough,
a private citizen, who lives privately, not because he cannot obtain
office, but because, having won the highest honors, he withdraws from
the scene and leaves the glittering rewards of public service to be
divided among those who seek them. Look for his name in the newspapers,
and you will not find it from year's end to year's end; look for deep
intrigues in local politics, and you will find no finger of his in the
dirty work. Look at the ill success of those who have engaged in public
affairs, their pecuniary entanglements, their deferred hopes, their
sleepless nights, those poisoned fountains of feeling bitter as aloes
even to the eye that looks on them as they bubble; these and such things
you may find, and find easily, but not at the door of Tazewell. He is
strictly a private citizen, engaged in his private affairs, raising and
selling at fair prices in company with his neighbors his oats and corn
and potatoes, and showing to all that the highest faculties are as
practical as the lowest, and that diligence and attention always have
their reward.
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