Being in the same room with the Secretary, and seen by all
his visitors, I am necessarily making many new acquaintances; and quite a number
recognize me by my books which they have read. Among this class is Mr.
Benjamin, the Minister of Justice, who, to-day, informed me that he and Senator
Bayard had been interested, at Washington, in my “Story of Disunion.” Mr.
Benjamin is of course a Jew, of French lineage, born I believe in Louisiana, a lawyer
and politician. His age may be sixty, and yet one might suppose him to be less
than forty. His hair and eyes are black, his forehead capacious, his face round
and as intellectual as one of that shape can be; and Mr. B. is certainly a man of
intellect, education, and extensive reading, combined with natural abilities of
a tolerably high order. Upon his lip there seems to bask an eternal smile; but
if it be studied, it is not a smile — yet it bears no unpleasing aspect.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 38
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