The visitors came away impressed. “When you talk to him he strikes you as quite above the ordinary run of mortals,” Wickes wrote in a letter home. “Perhaps it is the spirit that great patriots are supposed to have. Surely he has that—long struggling has left him mild and resigned, still sustaining some small idealism and hope [that war can be avoided]. But I think it is particularly his kindliness, his simplicity, his down-to-earthness. I think Abraham Lincoln must have been such a man, calm, sane, and humble.” To the Briton, meanwhile, Ho was an “outstanding character” with “excellent
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