He thought of himself as a soldier fighting for a cause, and he would no more leave because of a wound than he would have deserted his fellow-hunter in Africa, when that charging lion came down on them.

For two weeks he had to keep out of the campaign, recovering from his wound, first in a hospital and then at home.  Governor Wilson, the Democratic nominee, soon to be the President-Elect, generously offered to cease his campaign speeches, but this offer was declined by Mr. Roosevelt.

In the election, Mr. Wilson was the winner, with Mr. Roosevelt second.  The Progressive candidate beat the Republican, as it had been predicted he would.  Mr. Roosevelt received over half a million more votes than Mr. Taft, and had eighty-eight electoral votes to eight for Mr. Taft.  The Bosses were punished for defying the will of the voters and a useful lesson in politics was administered.

The testimony of Mr. Thayer is especially valuable, since he was a supporter of Mr. Wilson in this election.  He writes that since the election showed that Roosevelt had been all the time the real choice of the Republican Party “it was the Taft faction and not Roosevelt which split the Republican Party in 1912.”

CHAPTER XIV

THE EXPLORER

    I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
    Life to the lees.  All times I have enjoy’d
    Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
    That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
    Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
    Vext the dim sea.  I am become a name;
    For always roaming with a hungry heart
    Much have I seen and known,—­cities of men
    And manners, climates, councils, governments,
    Myself not least, but honor’d of them all,—­
    And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
    Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. ... 
    How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
    To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! 
    As tho’ to breathe were life!  Life piled on life
    Were all too little, and of one to me
    Little remains; but every hour is saved
    From that eternal silence, something more,
    A bringer of new things; and vile it were
    For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
    And this grey spirit yearning in desire
    To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
    Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

    Tennyson’s Ulysses.

Mr. Roosevelt took his defeat without whimpering.  When he was in a fight he gave blows and expected to receive them.  His enemies often hit foul blows, and this his friends resented, especially when the attacks actually provoked an attempt at murder.  When his private character was assailed he defended himself, promptly and successfully.  But neither he nor any of his friends asked that he should be sacred from all criticism; nor feebly protested that he was above ordinary mortals, and only to be mentioned with a sort of trembling reverence.  He was too much of a man to be kept wrapped in wool.